House Republicans to Meet Privately with Rod Rosenstein

House Republicans plan to privately question the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, about discussions last year where he suggested secretly taping President Donald Trump to expose a chaotic White House and removing him from office under the 25th Amendment.

Rosenstein and Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, spoke Thursday night and agreed to schedule a meeting in the coming weeks, Goodlatte said in a statement.

“There are many questions we have for Mr. Rosenstein, including questions about allegations made against him in a recent news article," Goodlatte said, referring to The New York Times article last week that revealed Rosenstein’s discussions with other law enforcement officials. “We need to get to the bottom of these very serious claims.”

House Democrats complained that they were left out of the planning and pledged to push to attend the meeting. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said his Republican colleagues “cannot be left alone in a room” with Rosenstein.

“They will not stop until their attempt to undermine Mueller’s investigation is complete,” he wrote on Twitter.

The meeting was the latest episode in a protracted feud between Rosenstein and a group of House Republicans loyal to Trump, who have long assailed the deputy attorney general as uncooperative with their efforts to conduct oversight of the Justice Department. Democrats have accused the Republicans of targeting Rosenstein because he oversees the special counsel investigation and forcing him to accede to onerous congressional demands.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and a close ally of Trump’s, said that if Rosenstein does not comply with their latest request, he will be subpoenaed to appear before lawmakers.

Rosenstein, who has denied The Times’ account, was said to be prepared to resign after his comments were reported and met with West Wing advisers Monday morning but left the White House with his job still intact. Trump said days later that he did not want to remove Rosenstein and postponed a meeting with him to next week.

In July, Meadows and 10 other House Republicans introduced articles of impeachment to force out Rosenstein, a long-shot bid that would require the support of a majority of the House to succeed, followed by a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict him.

“It’s time to find a new deputy attorney general who is serious about accountability and transparency,” Meadows said at the time.

Goodlatte called the coming meeting with Rosenstein part of the Judiciary Committee’s “joint investigation and oversight responsibilities.”

Trump, too, has been critical of his deputy attorney general, who assumed oversight of the Russia investigation last year when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself. But Wednesday, the president said that Rosenstein had a lot of respect for him and that he would prefer not to fire the deputy attorney general.

“We’ve had a good talk. He says he never said it, he doesn’t believe it,” Trump said of Rosenstein’s comments about him. “He’s very nice, and we’ll see.”