Rod Rosenstein tells Republicans he won’t be ‘extorted’ by impeachment threat

Department of Justice under mounting pressure from Republican critics, including Donald Trump

Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein has forcefully rejected a Republican threat to relieve him of his job, saying the Justice Department “is not going to be extorted”.

“We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job”, Mr Rosenstein said during a panel discussion.

The top law enforcement official was reacting to conservative Republicans drafting articles of impeachment against him, the latest salvo in a struggle between the Justice Department and a roster of Republican critics that includes Donald Trump.

As special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election meddling and potential ties to the Trump campaign has drawn closer to the president, producing indictments of multiple former campaign aides, Mr Trump and his allies and Congress have lashed out at the FBI and the Department of Justice. Mr Rostenstein oversees Mr Mueller’s probe.

Republican critics have argued Mr Mueller’s probe - which Mr Trump derides as a groundless “witch hunt” - is tainted by the bias of career law enforcement officials, and they have alleged that Justice Department officials mishandled probes into former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. In recent weeks they have demanded more documents from the Justice Department to try and corroborate those allegations.

Earlier this week it emerged that members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus had drawn up articles of impeachment against Mr Rosenstein, which caucus chair Mark Meadows described to the Washington Post as a “a last resort option, if the Department of Justice fails to respond” to his request for documents.

Speaking during a “Law Day” event at the Newseum in Washington, Mr Rosenstein said those types of political pressure tactics would not succeed. He dismissed the draft as a threat that “nobody has the courage to put their name on”.

“There have been people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time and I think they should understand by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted”, Mr Rosenstein said. “We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job”.