Far right House GOP gears up for another windmill tilt at Rod Rosenstein

| 12:00 pm EDT September 27, 2018
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House Republicans are once again threatening to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Back in July, House Freedom Caucus members Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan filed impeachment charges against Rosenstein that ultimately went nowhere. While the far right House members claimed to have done this because Rosenstein failed to deliver requested documents fast enough, their real motivation was to create further controversy around Rosenstein to make it easier for Donald Trump to fire him.

A surprising Monday afternoon report from Axios, incorrectly claiming that Rosenstein had offered to resign, created a sudden flurry of contradictory reporting that culminated in the announcement that he would be meeting with Trump on Thursday. This followed a laughable New York Times story which claimed Rosenstein seriously wanted to secretly record conversations with Trump, and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment.

Using this new negative press about Rosenstein, House Freedom Caucus members again pounced on the chance to vilify the man overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump-Russia scandal. On Monday, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz went on Lou Dobbs’ Fox Business Network show. During the interview, Gaetz stated that he and Mark Meadows will bring new articles of impeachment if Rosenstein refuses to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, of which Gaetz is a member.

“If our leadership will not put Rod Rosenstein in that witness chair so the American people can get answers, Mark Meadows and I are prepared to call up his impeachment and force a vote,” Gaetz stated. As Palmer Report documented last week, Gaetz has recently gone out of his way to associate with a known Holocaust denier in an effort to raise campaign funds. While this impeachment talk could just be another way to attract attention to increase his donations prior to the midterms (there is a 0.0% chance that Rosenstein could actually be removed via impeachment), Gaetz’s public comments did not end on Dobbs’ show.

Matt Gaetz also found time Monday night to appear on Cuomo Prime Time on CNN. While the conversation with Cuomo did not involve talk of impeachment, Gaetz went even further to claim Rosenstein’s comments on the 25th Amendment, even if he was indeed joking about it, are probably grounds for Trump to fire Rosenstein. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to joke about taking an action against the institution of the presidency,” Gaetz claimed. While Rosenstein’s future is in limbo until Thursday, it is clear that Gaetz, and the rest of the House Freedom Caucus, are desperate to oust Rosenstein any way they can.