You don’t have to be guilty of anything at all in order to be investigated by the FBI Rod Rosenstein admitted on Wednesday. They do it all the time. Just because you never committed a crime doesn’t mean they can’t go fishing for one. He couldn’t “vouch” for the allegations but insists the witch hunt wasn’t a “hoax.” We “investigate people who are not necessarily guilty. I didn’t have any presumption that these folks were guilty of anything.”
Rosenstein squirms on the hot seat
In the opening round of Senate interrogations, Rod Rosenstein spent an uncomfortable few hours squirming on the hot seat. He did a lot of bobbing and weaving to protect the forces of Deep State darkness but couldn’t avoid looking like a weasel by the time he slunk away from the hearing chamber.
All you need to wiretap someone is “reasonable suspicion” to investigate. If you cook up the bare minimum to say “hey, we think we might be able to find a crime” they get a license to go fishing. Lindsey Graham was shocked.
“The whole concept that the campaign was colluding with the Russians, there was no there there in August 2017. Do you agree with that general statement?” The Senate Judiciary Chairman asked. “I agree with that general statement,” Rosenstein confirmed. Even so, there was “reasonable suspicion” to investigate. That means the “probe was properly opened.” So what if they came up empty?
The witch hunt had a proper permit too
Another inflammatory subject concerning the witch hunt into Trump Russia collusion was the appointment of the Grand Inquisitor, Robert Mueller. Rosenstein was in charge of the whole show because Jeff Sessions didn’t want to be part of it. He still believes appointing Mueller to gather firewood for a good old fashioned burning at the stake, with President Donald Trump as the guest of honor, was a good idea. “I do not consider the investigation to be corrupt, senator, but I certainly understand the President’s frustration, given the outcome, which was in fact that there was no evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign advisers and Russians.”
“I believed at the time, senator, and I still believe it was the right decision under the circumstances,” Rosenstein countered. “I think it’s important to establish that an independent investigation found that the Russians sought to interfere in the election and that no Americans conspired with them.”
Rosenstein signed off on the third renewal application for the wiretap on Carter Page, but says he wouldn’t do it again if he knew it was entirely fabricated. The reason he didn’t know then is because it’s not his job to check the facts. His job was to read the form and make sure all the blanks were filled in with something by those under his command. He claims he did that flawlessly so he’s off the hook. It “wasn’t his role to verify” anything but he “properly reviewed the application. I don’t believe I was rubber-stamping, senator.”
Wearing a wire to trap Trump
Things really got uncomfortable for Rosenstein when the senators started grilling him about his offer to wear a wire and trap President Trump into giving them evidence to have him removed from office as “unfit.” Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono asked Rosenstein the big question on everyone’s mind, then bizarrely chopped him off just as he was about to answer it.
In 2018, the New York Times reported the deputy attorney general had volunteered to “secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit.”
Specifically she asked, “did you suggest or hint at secretly recording President Trump, yes or no?” He started to respond, “I did not secretly hint at recording President Trump. Iā” Before he could blurt out “did it openly,” she jumped in with “Have you ever discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove this president from office?” He never said Trump “should” be removed only “could” be removed and offered “a more detailed explanation if you have time…” She didn’t.
Which one is lying?
According to “insurance policy” conspirator Andrew McCabe in sworn testimony, Rosenstein said something along the lines of “I never get searched when I go into the White House. I could easily wear a recording device. They wouldn’t know it was there.” He wasn’t joking. “He was absolutely serious.”
McCabe claims he never took it seriously but he did run it by the other Deep State conspirators. When Jim Baker heard about it, “I think the general counsel had a heart attack. And when he got up off the floor, he said, ‘I, I, that’s a bridge too far. We’re not there yet.'”
On the 25th Amendment issue, McCabe remembers it like this, “he was discussing other cabinet members and whether or not people would support such an idea.” McCabe wasn’t sure whether Rosenstein “assign[ed] specific votes to specific people,” but “he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and [then-Secretary of Homeland Security] John F. Kelly.” Could that be why Sessions recused himself?
At the end of the day it’s still not crystal clear if Rod Rosenstein was “a participant in an attempted deep-state coup against the president,” or simply “a weak overseer of a department out of controlānegligent but not complicit.” In other words, “whether Rosenstein is a coup-plotter himself or merely the man who didn’t act to prevent the coup.”