Today CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez revealed that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is delaying his departure in order to shield Special Counsel Robert Mueller and “protect the investigation.”
“We know that Rod Rosenstein, one of the things that is the guiding force behind his decision-making here is that he wanted to make sure that he stayed until he was satisfied that the Mueller investigation was either complete or nearly enough to completion that he had helped protect the investigation” Perez claimed.
The Federalist Papers Reports:
Partial transcript:
HARLOW: “Okay. Many more questions on that which I will get to with our attorney in just a moment. But before you go, in just a few moments, we are learning that the acting attorney general Rod Rosenstein might actually not be leaving the Justice Department in mid-March, which would be right about now, like he was planning on. Why?”
PEREZ: “Right, exactly. This has been a big waiting game certainly for Rod Rosenstein. The expectation generally was that March 15 was going to be his last day, but now Laura Jarrett, our reporter at the justice Department, was told by an official that he is staying a little longer.
We don’t know exactly how much longer. He hasn’t given his notice yet to the White House of exactly his date of departure. But we do know this.
We know that Rod Rosenstein, one of the things that is the guiding force behind his decision-making here is that he wanted to make sure that he stayed until he was satisfied that the Mueller investigation was either complete or nearly enough to completion that he had helped protect the investigation.
That appears to be still the driving force.
Obviously, we had expected, there had been some expectation from the Justice Department officials that Mueller was going to hand him his report to the attorney general certainly by now, certainly by the end of February.
That was all the time that we were working on and it appears that Rod Rosenstein is staying just a little longer.”
HARLOW: “Evan, thanks for the reporting on both fronts.”
