Rod Rosenstein Has Botched the Mueller Probe

• Neglecting to place restrictions on the Mueller investigation is grounds for his removal.

Rich Lowry  "Rod Rosenstein is doing a star turn as principled defender of the law, but he’s performed abysmally as deputy attorney general, and President Donald Trump would be fully justified in firing him.

"The leaked questions that special counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask Trump in a prospective deposition are, if accurate, a sign that Mueller has spun out of control on Rosenstein’s watch.

"The questions (drafted by Trump’s legal team after consultations with Mueller’s investigators) suggest a free-floating investigation of the president’s motives, undertaken by a subordinate of the president. This is unlike any special-counsel investigation we’ve ever seen and represents a significant distortion of our system.

"Per the questions, Mueller wants to know how Trump reacted to news stories in the Washington Post. What he thought of FBI director James Comey during the transition. How he feels about his attorney general.

"These questions grow out of an obstruction-of-justice probe centered, as far as we can tell, on Trump’s exercise of the legitimate powers of the presidency. Mueller is out to prove that Trump had ill intentions. But this is an inherently problematic inquiry that involves a subordinate second-guessing the president on highly political questions." . . .  Full article