Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein speaks at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event on the rule of law on Feb. 25 in Washington. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo Mueller Investigation Rosenstein: Barr will do the ‘right thing’ on Mueller report

Rod Rosenstein, the outgoing deputy attorney general, said Monday that Americans should be confident that Attorney General William Barr will make an appropriate decision about whether to publicly release special counsel Robert Mueller’s expected report on alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“That’s going to be a decision the attorney general makes as to what to do with whatever information is provided to him,” Rosenstein said during a question-and-answer session following a speech in Washington. “I think Attorney General Barr is going to make the right decision. You can trust him to do this. … I think we can count on him to do the right thing.”


Rosenstein offered no details on the timing of the report or on what he would recommend to Barr on what to do with Mueller’s submission.

However, the No. 2 Justice Department official, who is expected to step down from his post next month, repeatedly expressed caution Monday about publicly airing allegations against individuals who haven’t been charged with crimes. That concern could complicate efforts to publicly disclose a detailed account of Mueller’s investigation.

“If we aren’t prepared to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt in court, then we have no business making allegations against American citizens,” Rosenstein told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I know there’s a tension there.”

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Rosenstein devoted the bulk of his prepared remarks to criticism of China and, to a lesser extent, Russia, for failing to fairly apply and enforce the rule of law in their countries. He spoke not only of the importance of the rule of law, but also of nurturing the “culture” in which that rule could flourish.

However, the most notable aspect of the deputy attorney general’s appearance was that he continued to offer praise for President Donald Trump, despite Trump’s numerous and recent public suggestions that Rosenstein is a leader of a deep-state cabal engaged in illegal and even “treasonous” acts.

Just a week ago, Trump tweeted that acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Rosenstein “look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.”

In his prepared remarks Monday, however, Rosenstein paid tribute to Trump’s policy of engagement with U.S. adversaries, repeated his previous assertions that Trump had shown his commitment to the rule of law through his “superb appointments” for Justice Department posts, and contended that little-noticed presidential proclamations on the importance of an independent and effective justice system were significant steps to strengthening rule of law.

“As the president recognized, law provides the framework for freedom,” Rosenstein declared.

During the Q&A, Rosenstein again returned to the subject, arguing that Trump’s nomination of people like Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray had advanced the rule of law in America.

“It’s always hard when you’re caught up in any issue of significant public controversy to be objective about it, but I’m very confident that when we look back in the long run on this era in the Department of Justice, we will be proud of the way the department has conducted itself and the president will deserve credit for the folks that he appointed to run the department,” the deputy attorney general said.

In his speech, Rosenstein was sharply critical of China, accusing its government of wielding the justice system there as a tit-for-tat tool used to respond to legal actions taken in the U.S. or elsewhere in the West.

“China, for instance, appears to detain foreign citizens as a means of retaliating or inflicting political pressure on other countries,” the deputy attorney general said.

Rosenstein also complained about the mass detention of members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority in re-education camps and about what he called the “extrajudicial pretrial detention” of Meng Hongwei, the former head of Interpol.

“Many people have been arrested and detained for long periods of time, without charge, trial or due process,” the deputy attorney general said. “The law is an instrument of state power, a mechanism for rulers to maintain control and quash dissent.”

Reporters listened intently to Rosenstein’s remarks for any signs of what might be coming with regard to the Mueller report. While insisting he wasn’t referring to any specific investigation or issue, the deputy attorney general said he believed that transparency could be taken too far.

“There is a knee-jerk reaction to be transparent about what we do in government, but there are a lot of reasons not to be transparent about what we do,” Rosenstein said. He suggested that releasing raw information from an investigation — as the department often does under the Freedom of Information Act and sometimes does in response to requests from Congress — could lead to inaccurate information and even “fake news.”

“It can be really misleading if you’re overly transparent about the information the government collects,” Rosenstein said. “Some of the things that we do just aren’t appropriate to expose at a congressional hearing. It just wouldn’t be in the interests of America to do it.”

Some also saw Rosenstein making a wry allusion to highly publicized claims from McCabe that Rosenstein offered to wear a wire to record Trump.

Rosenstein offered of his favorite anecdotes Monday about Benjamin Franklin, repeating his comments to a woman he encountered after the Constitutional Convention in 1787. When the woman asked what kind of government the delegates had settled on, Franklin reportedly said: “A republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”

Rosenstein thanked the moderator of Monday’s event, former Homeland Security official Suzanne Spaulding, for noting that the precise attribution of Franklin’s alleged quote remains murky.

“Thank you for pointing out: We don’t know exactly what Franklin said,” the deputy attorney general said. “The woman was not carrying a recording device. It did not preserve the exact words.”