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Rep. Gaetz Continues Call for 2nd Special Counsel

132 views · Published 17 April 2018 · 3:55 · Indexed 23 October 2026

Channel: Former Congressman Matt Gaetz · 2018 · People & Blogs

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April 16, 2018
CSPAN


“I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding and also for leading on the great question of whether or not we should have a second special counsel to evaluate the misconduct of the FBI and the Department of Justice in pursuing unfounded and inappropriate warrants to spy on members of the Trump transition team without due process and without proper protocol.  One of the reasons I joined the gentleman from New York in this call is that currently the person making the critical decisions regarding Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and this narrative regarding Russia is Rod Rosenstein and I believe Mr. Rosenstein has a series of conflicts of interest. Each of which would independently disqualify him from overseeing this review and yet he continues. That's troubling to me and it's one of the reasons why we need to have a second special counsel. In fact, it was Mr. Rosenstein who signed a FISA warrant renewal to spy on Carter Page. He did this even though the FBI and Department of Justice knew that Christopher Steele, the author that was the principle for the warrant, had said things that were not true to the FBI Mr. Rosenstein also signed pleadings seeking to silence a witness who may have had information regarding the sale of uranium to Russians. Mr. Rosenstein took no real action against Bruce Ohr, a senior official at the Department of Justice, even though Mr. Ohr failed to report the fact that his wife was moonlighting as a researcher to dig up dirt on Donald Trump and then co-mingle that dirt with lies told by Russians and folks from Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC Mr. Rosenstein allowed Bob Mueller to pick a biased team, people who had gone to Hillary Clinton's election night party, people who had represented the Clinton Foundation when they had been accused of not producing public documents. Mr. Rosenstein could have stepped in, he could have demanded a higher standard in the assembly of that team but he didn't. Mr. Rosenstein wrote a secret memo to expand the scope of the Russia investigation. He approved the raid on Mr. Trump's personal lawyer.  He took no action on criminal referrals laid out by senators Grassley and Graham, and others, indicating that Christopher Steele and Glen Sitchson had lied to the FBI and Simpson had failed to register with a foreign government, but when Mr. Rosenstein's own action was questioned, when his own propriety and integrity was called to bear, as a consequence of his participation in the illegal spying by our government on American citizens, well, he didn't go seek the same special counsel remedy that he sought to go after Mr. Trump. He went and picked his own employees to investigate himself and I agree with Mr. Zeldin of New York that is a standard that erodes our trust in the rule of law. When he got one set of rules for the Clintons and the FBI and the deep state, and another set of rules for anyone that's had anything to do with Mr. Trump, we depriving ourselves of the ability to find the facts and ensure that people who have truly broken the law are held accountable. I support Mr. Zeldin's call for a second special counsel. I would note that this is an organic call from the membership of this body. It began with several members of the Judiciary Committee in July, under Mr. Zeldin's leadership. We've had a number of Republican colleagues sign on, including the majority leader of the house and the whip of the house so we invite and encourage our leadership to continue to support these efforts, so that we can restore the rule of law in this country. I thank the gentleman from New York and yield him back his time.”

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