Could Trump allies really impeach Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein? Not likely, experts say
WASHINGTON — Some conservative House allies of President Trump have recently threatened to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — invoking an extreme punishment that has not been carried out against an executive branch employee in 122 years.
The Republicans who have raised the specter of impeachment — including Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan — are threatening to use a remedy that the Constitution says is for "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Their complaint against Rosenstein is that he has been too slow in producing documents they requested involving the Justice Department's current Russia investigation and its past probe of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State.
Rosenstein is overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians in the 2016 election — a probe that Trump and his fiercest allies in Congress want to end.
"When you impeach an executive official, it's frankly branding them as a criminal," said Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore. "It's not meant to use to go after officials who don't share your policy views or your political goals."
The last executive branch official — other than a president — who was impeached by the House was Secretary of War William Belknap, who was charged in 1876 with bribery "for accepting payments in exchange for making official appointments," according to the House Office of the Historian. He was acquitted by the Senate a few months later.
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