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Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein defended special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in the face of critical questioning Wednesday from the House Judiciary Committee about whether bias might have infected Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Rosenstein said that he had not seen good cause to fire Mueller, and that although some members of the special counsel team had political views, that did not necessarily taint their work.
“We recognize we have employees with political opinions. It’s our responsibility to make sure those opinions do not influence their actions,’’ Rosenstein said. “I believe that Director Mueller understands that and he is running his office appropriately.’’
Rosenstein also said he and Mueller talked about what his office was allowed to investigate and what it was not, though he declined to answer directly whether he had granted Mueller permission to expand his mandate.
“It’s a clarification in most cases,” Rosenstein said. Asked later if President Trump — who has in the past expressed concern about the scope of the probe — had ever talked with him about removing Mueller, Rosenstein responded, “I am not going to be discussing my communications with the president, but I can tell you that nobody has communicated to me a desire to remove Robert Mueller.”
Rosenstein’s appearance, which began at 10 a.m., comes the morning after texts between two senior FBI officials that disparaged Trump and expressed fear that he might win were turned over to lawmakers. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) referred to the texts in his opening statement, saying they were “deeply troubling to all citizens who expect a system of blind and equal justice.”
“Department of Justice investigations must not be tainted by individuals imposing their own political prejudices,” Goodlatte said.
[Republicans hammer Mueller, FBI as Russia investigation intensifies]
The officials who exchanged the messages — senior FBI agent Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page — once worked for Mueller’s team and were key players in a prior investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin coordinated to influence the 2016 election and already has charged or negotiated plea deals with four people, including former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Even before the messages were revealed, some Republicans had accused Mueller’s team of harboring inappropriate bias, pointing to political contributions by several members to Clinton or other Democrats. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) read each of the donations to Rosenstein Wednesday, asking how he could “with a straight face” say they were impartial.
The texts offered new ammunition.
One of the earliest messages, from 2015, shows Strzok calling Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, “an idiot like Trump. Figure they cancel each other out.’’ On March 4, 2016, Page texted, “God, Trump is a loathsome human,’’ to which Strzok replied, “Yet he may win.’’
Democrats, meanwhile, stood up for Mueller, who himself is a registered Republican.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) asked Rosenstein to detail why he had chosen Mueller for the job, and after detailing Mueller’s credentials, Rosenstein remarked, “I believe he was an ideal choice for this task.”
As Cohen then launched his own defense of Mueller, declaring “Everybody respects this man in this country,’’ Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) quickly interjected: “I don’t.’’
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said there was nothing wrong with the officials expressing “private political views via private text messages.” Strzok, in particular, “did not say anything about Donald Trump that the majority of Americans weren’t also thinking at the same time,” he said.
Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team in late July when his bosses found out about the texts. By that time, Page already had left for unrelated reasons, officials have said. Rosenstein said that Mueller had taken appropriate action in taking Strzok off the team.
Republicans also have long complained about the Clinton investigation’s conclusion, when then-FBI Director James B. Comey recommended that she not be charged even as he criticized her and her aides’ use of the private server. Goodlatte said the Strzok-Page texts “prove what we all suspected — high ranking FBI officials involved in the Clinton investigation were personally invested in the outcome of the election and clearly let their strong political opinions cloud their professional judgment.”
Goodlatte has called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate that and other Clinton-related matters, and Sessions indicated in a response last month that he had directed senior prosecutors to explore some of the topics and report back to him. Nadler said that request was “grossly misguided.”
The Justice Department Inspector General’s Office has said its investigators are looking into the handling of the Clinton email investigation, and also the texts between Strzok and Page. Rosenstein said he was hopeful the inspector general would conclude his investigation “in the next couple months,” adding, “When we get those results, we’ll take appropriate action.”
Rosenstein has a supervisory role over Mueller, as Sessions has recused himself from the case because of his work on the Trump campaign. His appearance on Capitol Hill is part of the House Judiciary Committee’s normal oversight of the Justice Department.
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WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered to begin direct talks with North Korea without pre-conditions, backing away from a key U.S. demand that Pyongyang must first accept that giving up its nuclear arsenal would be part of any negotiations.
Tillerson’s new diplomatic overture comes nearly two weeks after North Korea said it had successfully tested a breakthrough intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that put the entire United States mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.
“Let’s just meet,” Tillerson said in a speech to Washington’s Atlantic Council think tank on Tuesday.
The White House later issued an ambiguous statement that left unclear whether President Donald Trump – who has said Tillerson was wasting his time pursuing dialogue with North Korea – had given his approval for the speech.
“The president’s views on North Korea have not changed,” the White House said. “North Korea is acting in an unsafe way … North Korea’s actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea.”
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China welcomed all efforts to ease tension and promote dialogue to resolve the problem.
China hopes the United States and North Korea can meet each other halfway and take meaningful steps on dialogue and contact, he told reporters.
Ahead of Tillerson’s speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to develop more nuclear weapons while personally decorating scientists and officials who contributed to the development of Pyongyang’s most advanced ICBM, state media said on Wednesday.
Kim said on Tuesday the scientists and workers would continue manufacturing “more latest weapons and equipment” to “bolster up the nuclear force in quality and quantity”, the KCNA news agency said.
“PERIOD OF QUIET”
While reiterating Washington’s long-standing position that it cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, Tillerson said the United States was “ready to talk any time they’re ready to talk”, but there would first have to be a “period of quiet” without nuclear and missile tests.
United Nations political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman, who visited Pyongyang last week, said senior North Korean officials did not offer any type of commitment to talks, but he believed he left “the door ajar”.
“Time will tell what was the impact of our discussions, but I think we have left the door ajar and I fervently hope that the door to a negotiated solution will now be opened wide,” Feltman told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
Not everyone is ready for talks.
Japan has advocated a strategy of pressuring North Korea through sanctions to give up its nuclear weapons. Tokyo and Washington are in “100 percent” agreement on that stance, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Wednesday, when asked about Tillerson’s comments.
A former Japanese diplomat said that, while a diplomatic solution was the “only acceptable solution”, now was not the time for talks.
“We have to see the effects of sanctions on life in North Korea,” the former diplomat, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
“I heard that they are having a serious impact on everyday life. Let’s wait and see. If we were to hint anything for dialogue, we’d be losing clout.”
South Korea continued military exercises with the United States to check military readiness, exercises the North describes as preparation for war. The South’s army said separately on Wednesday it conducted a successful air-to-air missile firing drill from Apache helicopters.
U.S. TALKS TO CHINA
Tillerson also disclosed the United States had been talking to China about how to secure North Korea’s nuclear weapons in the event of a collapse of the government in Pyongyang. He said Beijing had been given assurances that if U.S. forces had to cross into North Korea they would pull back across the border into the South.
Chinese spokesman Lu would not directly answer a question about those comments, but said China had always clearly told all its interlocutors on the issue that “There can be neither war nor chaos” on the Korean peninsula.
Tillerson made clear that the United States wants to resolve the North Korea standoff through peaceful diplomacy and, in terms far more tempered than Trump’s recent threats against Pyongyang, offered to hold exploratory talks.
“We can talk about the weather if you want,” he said. “We can talk about whether it’s going to be a square table or a round table. Then we can begin to lay out a map, a road map, of what we might be willing to work towards.”
Tillerson – whose influence has appeared to wane within the administration – said Trump “has encouraged our diplomatic efforts”.
Trump said on Twitter in October that Tillerson was “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man”, using his derisive nickname for Kim.
North Korea, for its part, has made clear it has little interest in negotiations with the United States until it has developed the ability to hit the U.S. mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile, something most experts say it has still not proved.
Tillerson also said the United States was working to tighten enforcement of international sanctions against North Korea, especially further measures that China can apply, and that Washington had a full menu of military options if such a response was needed.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the non-partisan Arms Control Association, said Tillerson’s proposal was overdue but added, “In order to get to such talks going, the U.S. side as well as North Korea must demonstrate more restraint”.
For multimedia cover on North Korea: www.reuters.com/north-korea/
Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON, Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, Ben Blanchard in BEIJING and Tim Kelly and Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez
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