UPDATE: Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) fires back at Rosenstein via Twitter.
During an event in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein addressed a report that House Republicans allied with President Trump have drafted articles of impeachment against him to be used as a "last resort."
"They can't even resist leaking their own drafts," Rosenstein quipped during a moderated discussion at the Newseum to commemorate Law Day.
(...)
The draft document did not include any signatures, but it laid out a series of allegations against Rosenstein, such as violating federal law by refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena over Congress’s efforts to obtain documents about FBI surveillance during the election and intentionally stalling document production for congressional investigations into possible government misconduct.
Rosenstein said the standards the Department of Justice (DOJ) follows for making charges against someone are far different than how the drafters approached making allegations in this document — leaked and unsigned.
(...)
"There have been people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted," Rosenstein continued.
Watch:
WaPo:
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — led by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a Trump confidant — finalized the draft in recent days. It came after weeks of disputes with Rosenstein over the Justice Department’s response to congressional requests for documents about the decisions and behavior of federal law enforcement officials working on the Russia investigation and other federal probes, including the investigation into 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email server.
Time:
The articles could spark conflict within the GOP as many of the party’s leaders have said Special Counsel Robert Mueller should be left to continue his investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to the Russian government. Those Republicans’ support, along with the Democrats, would make it difficult for the document to gain genuine momentum in Congress.
House Republicans Close to President Trump Draft Articles of Impeachment Against Rod Rosenstein (Time)
Trump-allied House conservatives draft articles of impeachment against Rosenstein as ‘last resort’ (Washington Post)