At an official Justice Department dinner in New York hosted by the Armenian Bar Association, Rod Rosenstein defended the handling of the Mueller probe while criticizing both James Comey and Barack Obama in the process.
Rosenstein said that Comey shared confidential information with a congressional staffer and that information was leaked to the press, which may have been the plan all along. He also called out Obama for withholding information about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He says that Obama should have been more forthcoming.
The truth is he didn’t want to anger the Russians because he wanted them to join him in agreeing to the incredibly bad Iran deal.
Rosenstein defended his handling of the special counsel’s investigation, ripped former FBI Director James Comey and accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people on Russia.
“I did pledge to do it right and take it to the appropriate conclusion. I did not promise to report all results to the public because grand jury investigations are ex parte proceedings,” Rosenstein said of Mueller’s report, which found no evidence of collusion between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and Russia.
He then discussed Comey’s handling of the investigation, making clear that he was not happy with the former FBI director’s handling of the investigation, saying:
The FBI disclosed classified evidence about the investigation to ranking legislators and their staffers. Someone selectively leaked details to the news media. The FBI director [Comey] announced at a congressional hearing that there was a counterintelligence investigation that might result in criminal charges. Then the former FBI director alleged that the president pressured him to close the investigation, and the president denied that the conversation occurred.