House Republicans Move to Impeach Deputy AG Rosenstein

Rod Rosenstein. Speaking on Fox News, House Freedom Caucus member Mark Meadows explained the actions for us, it's all about transparency, so of the American people can judge for themselves, and so you know, they may be able to ignore Congress, but they can't ignore the American people joining us. As Jeff Kramer, a former federal prosecutor and managing director at the Berkeley Research Group, Jeff a lot of drama, but

not much evidence of any traction. Paul Ryan says he's not supporting it, and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said it's more likely Rosenstein will end up in the NBA playing basketball than being impeach So why file articles and impeachment? Yeah, that's a good line in the basketball. It's basically for it is for drama, and it got a news cycle for a day and that was it. You know, it allows some people to pop off and express their dissatisfaction

um with the deputy Attorney general. Um. But it's it was absurd to think it was gonna go anywhere. I'm sure they thought so as well. So what do you think is rosen Stein's future here? Does he does he stay? Does he eventually leave? What do you think? You know? The rosen fins is a career prosecutor, so he certainly has you know, d o j uh running through his blood. I don't think he's gonna leave anytime soon, certainly not

before the Mueller investigation is done. I mean, he he knows that if he were to leave, someone could be appointed who would then stopped in his track. So I think he has a sense of duty that he needs to stick it out, and he's gonna be a punching bag and he knows that. But he's got to wait, I think until the Mueller investigation, not necessarily all the trials, but certainly the crux of the investigation has done. You just spoke about the Mueller investigation. Let's talk about that

a little bit. There was a New York Times article this morning that talked about how Mueller's investigators are really seriously looking at some of the president's tweets tell us about how those tweets might play a part in the investigation. Yeah, I mean that's been banted around, not by Mueller, but just by you know, various individuals that that could prove to be fodder. And not surprisingly, Mueller is looking at it.

It's it gives you a glimpse into what the person and you know, if this was an average individual, you do the same thing. What is he or she said? That could add some color to what they were thinking, because that's what obstruction comes down to, is their intent. And you look at someone's intent, you look at what their actions are. And part of this president's actions are his tweets trying to influence, if not the investigation, then public perception. But he was certainly trying to influence as

best he could uh the investigation. You could argue that that has obstruction not two problems. One, it's not great evidence, but it's it's a part of the mosaic if you will too. Which is a bigger problem is even if he did commit obstruction, even if you could prove it, Mueller has been clear that he's going to abide by d o J policy. It's not the law, it's policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. So I think it best you're going to get an argument laid out

in a report to Congress. What about the collusion piece of it? Though, yeah, I mean I don't know. The president says no collusion over and so far, you know, there's no leaks that suggests that that's where Mueller, that Mueller's got anything on that true. But this investigation, and we've seen it, uh, surprised us in the sense that we just wake up and there's an indictment. I mean, I dare say that nine percent of the population has never heard Bob Muller talk. They don't even know his voice.

It's like, and that's appropriate because he's just putting his head down and doing his work. Is up press release, there's no news conferences, et cetera. So he's certainly looking at the collusion. That's a hard argument to make. Um. We certainly see some individuals in the Trump orbit, and some of them have been indicted, who were interacting with Russian government officials and perhaps agents of the Russian government, and we saw a recent indictment just now. Um. But

proving that Trump or someone very close to included. And you know it's called a conspiracy because collusion itself is it's not a crime. Um, it's conspiras a conspiracy to take uh anything of aid from a foreign government, that's the crime. It's gonna be hard to tag that to the White House itself. So now I don't know if we'll see Muther even observing at the Maniford trial, but

that's supposed to start next week. How important is a conviction of Manifort to the Special Council's investigation as a whole. I think it's are important. It's the first first volley, and you want to win that trial because as you move forward in the investigation. Part of this that's true with any prosecutorial office. When you're bringing people in, is

you're trying to flip them, you're trying to turn them. Well, how you flip them, how you turn them is the fear, the specter that if they get indicted and tried, they're going to jail. And that specter becomes more prominent if you've already cut a scalp, if you were um and this one is I don't want to say it's a you know, it's it's an easy case because all cases

are difficult once you get to trial. But it's a pretty solid case with documents, money trail, no taxes paid, and you've got several witnesses who are going to give some color to the trial itself. Certainly, Mr Gates, it's not a long trial. You know, this thing may take three weeks. I doubt will see Mr manafor trial or to actually testify. And I think at the end of this trial there'll be a conviction. Uh, and that's an

important one for the special prosecutor to get. Well, it's going to be a little bit of a picture of life styles of the rich and famous, five exhibits, including including pictures of his palatial houses and expensive clothes. Now the judge is trying to lay down all kinds of ground rules so that the jury won't be exposed to the politics of the case. Is it possible to shield

jurors from that? You know, it's it's hard. I mean, they're not going to be sequestered, so they're gonna go home, they're gonna be told not to read anything about uh, you know, politics or this trial. Certainly, that basically leaves the sports section availbum the potential jurors. You can't turn on the TV. That's too risky. But like I say, this is not a four months trial, so they just need to keep their heads down for for a few weeks. You know, the Virginia District is known to pick a

quick jury. This is gonna be a little trickier because given where it's located, either they or someone close to them probably works or worked in the past tense for the government, and chances are, like everyone else in this country, they have pre solid views politically speaking. Uh, maybe a little tricky to pick a jury, but once they do, in my experience, jurors are pretty good about listening to

those kind of instructions. The trick here is to make sure you get a fair jury and not someone who wants to get on this panel just to get their fifteen minutes of faith and maybe prove a point. Just about thirty seconds here, what do you think man of forts defense is going to be just trying to knock holes in the prosecution's case. It's a hard defense, it

really is. And that's what it comes down to. You're looking for one juror just to hang this thing up, and you know Gates has some baggage on him, as any flipper does. But you can't cross examine a document. It is what it is. Either paid the taxes or he didn't. Either set up the shell companies or he didn't. It's a very hard defense, uh, to to muster, and you're just gonna throw everything against the wall and maybe get lucky. Always great to have you on, Jeff. That's

Jeff Kramer. He's managed and directed the Berkeley Research. Of course, America, lawyers, intern porners, and other professionals are volunteering some of their free time to help an organization called Lawyers for Good Government, which its founder, executive director and only employee, Tracy fight

Love says, is a progressive non partis an organization. I think the reason we're seeing the wave of activity that we're seeing now, and the reasons so many people joined Lawyers for Government, and the reasons so many people are participating in these other movements is because they believe as I do, in the idea of America, in the dream of America, and what we can accomplish when we stand up for those ideals together joining us as Nick Lieber,

a reporter for Bloomberg News who has written about this group. Nick, It's not unusual for lawyers to do pro bono work, but this kind of a setup and network is different

from the usual pro bono work. Explain how it works. Sure, So, they are one point three four million lawyers in the US and many of them work for themselves and work for small firms that don't have pro bono councils that you know, and this group is a way for those lawyers who don't have access to pro bono councils to volunteer and to find opportunities where they feel like they

can do some good. So it's a it's a group that helps train these lawyers and helps place them in volunteer opportunities, and that can be anything from um environmental protection to preventing voter suppression to helping immigrants cheek asylums.

Are there any volunteer lawyers for Trump? Um? There there are probably volunteer lawyers for Trump the causes that this group Lawyers for Government does UM, I would doubt there are too many lawyers within it who support UM many of Trump's policies that have to do with immigration or environmental protection or voter suppression. Nick I was noticing in your article that a lot of the lawyers who are volunteering don't have experience in these practice areas, so what

do they do to train them? So the the organization itself, Lawyers for Good Government, will do some training, and the organizations in which they volunteer, so say a legal services group UM on the border, will will train them as well. So there are there are different opportunities to get trained depending on what you elect to volunteer and do. And you know, and of course it's competitive, there are a

lot of people who want to volunteer and UM. The in the detention centers there is limited space, limited limited visiting space where you can meet with clients. UM. So you you sort of um have to have to find time space training and then be able to do it. Make any sense of how much time some of these lawyers are spending away from their day jobs, I think it's generally about a week if you're if you're on the ground in a in a detention center. UM. That's

generally how it works. But then people are also UM. During the first iteration of the of the Muslim band the travel ban, people were spending weeks away from their offices UM. And I think it depends. I think there are also people volunteering UM remotely and helping prepare briefs, and that could mean you spend you know, six hours at night after after you finished your work at your practice, or four hour US at night after you finish your practice. UM.

I think it. I think it varies, but generally it's about a week if you go to to volunteer at a legal services group UM and you're and you're in a detention center. So I thought you mentioned that they volunteered remotely, which I thought was really interesting. But the coordination it must take to get all these disparate elements together and even to get translators involved. So tell us

about how she's managing all this. Well, I think I think you know right right when she she started the group UM, there was an incredible outpouring of people who wanted to be involved. And I think what she's been spending a lot of time doing is exactly that is figuring out. Okay, let's make sure we have an interpreter who can be on the ground at Boston Air at Logan.

Let's make sure we have someone who has spent a decade doing immigration law who can go to Texas it's figuring out who has certain skills and who can get from point A to point B at a certain time. And a lot of that is people volunteering their time to create spreadsheets that they then used to say, Okay, I'm available this, this person is available at this time.

They have these skills and they can do this, and they're willing to come on these dates and then and then the sort of magic of them making coordinating all that and making it happen. But it's, you know, it's it's hard work. Only less in a minute here, Nick, But what other professionals besides lawyers and translators do does she have? I think that they're also looking for psychiatrists who can help do evaluations of parents and children that

they can use in in their asylum requests. Who can talk about the stress and and more hardcore UM realities that asylum seekrets have faced and can document that in reports. UM interpreters, yes, UM, and people who are willing, I think, to give rides to asylum seekers when they're going, say, leaving a detention center and then trying to reconnect that ended there, Nick, It sounds really comprehensive and as was your story. Thanks so much. That's Nick's Lieber, a reporter

for Bloomberg News. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg. Yeah,