March 13, 2018, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement expressing continued concern that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s direction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller is well outside the scope of the 2016 election campaign:
“If, per Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is ‘not an unguided missile,’ then we can safely assume that Rosenstein has signed off on all of Mueller’s prosecutions, including those that fall outside the scope of the 2016 election campaign. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ original recusal was for anything to do with the 2016 election. Given Rosenstein’s expansive view of the recusal, it’s time for the Attorney General to have a direct conversation with him and explain that Mueller does not have free rein to investigate anything before or after the elections and related the campaigns.
“Rosenstein, by his own admission, approved the targeting of Michael Flynn for legal activities that occurred after the election, and whose only crime was telling the truth to the FBI and running out of money to defend himself from a political prosecution. This is particularly troubling given reports that the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he lied. Attorney General Sessions’ recusal was the right thing to do from a legal perspective, but only in the narrow scope of the campaign. We’re far beyond that now. Rosenstein’s guided missile at the President is flying well outside the space where it was sanctioned. It is time for Rosenstein to either confine the scope of Mueller’s seemingly unending investigation to the period of the election or step aside. This is particularly true given the House Intelligence Committee’s impending conclusion that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, putting an end to Rosenstein’s stated rationale for the special counsel. It’s time for the country to move forward.”
Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.
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