On Wednesday night North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows, supported by ten of his fellow Republicans, introduced a resolution to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The grounds of the impeachment are that Rosenstein has allegedly blocked congressional oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The resolution is unlikely to go far since it doesn’t have the support of the Republican leadership. Still, it’s a significant indicator of the arguments that President Donald Trump’s fervent allies are making against the Mueller investigation.
One striking thing about the resolution is, as USA Today reporter Brad Heath notes, Rosenstein is being accused of alleged irregularities that took place before he assumed his office.
Among other things, some House Republicans want to impeach Rod Rosenstein for something that happened six months before he took office. pic.twitter.com/Rt3u6GJLmh
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) July 25, 2018
.. and for something that happened both before Rosenstein took office *and* is belied by the declassified portions of the government's FISA application. pic.twitter.com/4rqfW0uhfV
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) July 25, 2018
... and for "unnecessary redactions." pic.twitter.com/FH4fvX6Vuf
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) July 25, 2018
They also want to impeach him for the "potentially improper authorization" of FISA searches of the Trump campaign. Page left the campaign a month before the FBI got its wiretap order; by the time Rosenstein took office the campaign was over. pic.twitter.com/HXsKFgWbN6
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) July 26, 2018
Heath’s entire thread is worth reading. It makes abundantly clear that the impeachment resolution is a document of dubious legal validity, even as it might have some propaganda value for a subset of hard-core Trump supporters.