Former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Joe diGenova unloaded on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday, calling him “incompetent, a “disgrace” and a “coward” who should be fired.
“His conduct from the beginning of this has been a disgrace,” diGenova proclaimed on Fox News’ Hannity during a discussion with Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz over the question of whether President Trump should be interviewed by the special counsel. “He is an embarrassment to the administration — it is truly too bad that he cannot be fired,” he said.
DiGenova continued angrily: “The president has never been a target. The fact that he has been recently notified that he is a subject means absolutely nothing. He is not even a subject — he is a witness. A subject is a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury’s investigation. What the hell does that mean? It means they don’t have anything on him. There have been nineteen criminal cases. Not one piece of evidence against the president of the United States. And now we are told that Mueller wants to — wants to interview the president of the United States, who knows nothing. Who has been a witness to nothing. Who is not a target of the investigation!”
He added: “What we are seeing now is conduct by two public officials — Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein — that is unethical, unprofessional, an embarrassment to the United States government and is undermining equal enforcement of the law because of what they are doing to a president of the United States!”
As unhappy as DiGenova was with Mueller, it was nothing compared to his disgust with Rosenstein, whom he continued to bash with great gusto.
“Rod Rosenstein single-handedly has taken away from the sitting president of the United States 16 months of his presidency by his incompetent and fearful conduct,” he charged. “You know why Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller? Because he didn’t want to make the tough decisions that you’d have to make if you were supervising a case being run by a United States attorney like [John] Huber. Rod Rosenstein is a coward. He’s a disgrace to the Department of Justice. It’s a shame that the president cannot fire him because of the political consequences,” the former attorney declared.
Dershowitz repeated a point that he made last night on Hannity, which is that it is amazing that Rosenstein has not recused himself from the Russia investigation.
“After all, he is the main witness on whether or not obstruction of justice occurred with the firing of Comey and he wrote the memo!” Dersh exclaimed.
The professor warned Democrats that they will pay a political price like Republicans did in 1998 when they impeached Bill Clinton if they keep it up.
But DiGenova wasn’t interested in talking about Bill Clinton. He wanted to talk about Mueller and his quest to interview the president.
“What does he want to question him about?!” he asked angrily. “He cannot question him about the firing of Comey. That is an Article II constitutional authority that the president has to fire Comey!” diGenova exclaimed.
“This is a perjury trap!” he declared. “This is nonsense. This is absolutely outrageous! It should end right now.”
Dershowitz agreed that Mueller should not be allowed to ask any Article II questions of the president.
“I would suggest that it would be best if the president refused to answer certain questions that intruded on his Article II powers,” Dershowitz said.
“The president should not agree to an interview in my opinion,” diGenova added. “The president should, at the most, answer written questions in a very limited area and he should never, ever be interviewed. This is an abomination and a violation.”
“If Bob Mueller wants to take the president of the United States — who is not involved in any of the nineteen charges that he has brought thus far — into a court over testimony, I think that that would be one of the most disgraceful periods in American history — absolutely outrageous!” he concluded.
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