President Donald Trump doesn’t exactly seem to be popular among former members of his administration. Now, in response to an article in The Washington Post outlining the president’s recent demands for Justice Department action against his political opponents, former deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has spoken out. Rosenstein served alongside Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is also no longer in the administration, and the then-deputy AG took over the Russia investigation after Sessions recused himself. Rosenstein was responsible for the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel. Late Friday evening, Rosenstein touted the “rule of law” in a Twitter post.
As mentioned, he was speaking in response to a piece outlining Trump’s recent threats against the orderly procession of the rule of law. Trump has insisted as recently as this week that Hillary Clinton should be thrown in jail, which is, quite simply, nonsensical but also reveals the president’s brazenly dictatorial leanings.
Notably, Rosenstein turned off comments on his post. He commented:
‘The Department of Justice will ignore the President’s threats against his political opponents, as it has in the past, because prosecutors who take an oath to support and defend the Constitution must uphold the rule of law.’
The Department of Justice will ignore the President's threats against his political opponents, as it has in the past, because prosecutors who take an oath to support and defend the Constitution must uphold the rule of law. https://t.co/zFUKekZO4t
— Rod Rosenstein (@RodRosenstein) October 10, 2020
Rosenstein’s apparent confidence might be a little difficult to see real-world evidence for as long as Attorney General Bill Barr is in charge at the Justice Department. Barr has repeatedly proven his willingness to go the distance for Trump. He has, for example, expressed public support for the president’s conspiracy theories ranging from the baseless idea that there’s potential systematic fraud that accompanies the usage of mail-in ballots to the also systematically unsupported idea that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign.
Barr has also used the wheels of the Justice Department for the benefit of Trump and his political allies. Examples range from Barr’s rush to declare the president to be innocent following the conclusion of Mueller’s investigation to his team’s ongoing attempt to drop the criminal case against Trump ally Michael Flynn, who once pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with a Russian ambassador but eventually walked that back.
