Rod Rosenstein congressional interview postponed

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s planned closed-door interview Wednesday with two House committees has been postponed, the committee chairmen said Tuesday night.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, and Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, said in a joint statement the interview will be delayed.

“Mr. Rosenstein has indicated his willingness to testify before the Judiciary and Oversight Committees in the coming weeks in either a transcribed interview or a public setting,” the statement said. “We appreciate his willingness to appear and will announce further details once it has been rescheduled.”

Mr. Rosenstein, who oversees special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, had been scheduled to be interviewed in a classified location by a bipartisan group of lawmakers that would include Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. Gowdy and ranking Democrats Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland. A transcript of the interview would be released after it was reviewed by the intelligence community, the committees announced last week.

The postponement comes after GOP Judiciary Committee members Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio, and Rep. Mark Meadows, North Carolina, criticized the proceedings because they were private and only the committees’ leaders were permitted questions.

“That is completely unacceptable for those of us who have been involved in this issue now,” Mr. Jordan said last week.

Mr. Meadows, who leads the conservative House Freedom Caucus, added that the deputy attorney general “had purposefully gone out of his way to not be transparent with the American people.”

Mr. Meadows and other Freedom Caucus members have demanded Mr. Rosenstein’s impeachment after two previous tries for interviews didn’t pan out.

Mr. Rosenstein’s appearance would be roughly a month after The New York Times reported that he talked about wearing a wire and wanted to remove President Trump from office via the 25th Amendment.

Mr. Rosenstein and Mr. Trump spoke on Air Force One this month on a trip to a conference in Florida, after which Mr. Trump said they had a “great” conversation and he had no plans to fire the No. 2 official at the Justice Department.