Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein shrugged off the implications of being criticized, one day after President Trump shared an image depicting the No. 2 official at the Justice Department behind bars.

“Just because people are quick to criticize you does not mean that you are doing the wrong thing,” he told an audience at Georgetown University on Thursday.

Rosenstein’s comments were made in the context of fighting cybercrime. But they also came a day after the president retweeted an image that showed several of his political opponents in jail, including Rosenstein.





Trump defended the retweet in an interview with the New York Post, saying Rosenstein belongs in jail because “he should have never picked a special counsel.”

Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May 2017 after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. Trump never forgave Sessions for his recusal, which eventually led to the former attorney general’s ouster earlier this month.

Trump declined to say in the interview with the New York Post whether he’d fire Rosenstein, who offered to resign in September after it was reported that the deputy attorney general may have talked about wearing a wire and invoking the 25th Amendment on Trump.

The president has increased his attacks on Mueller in the last week, referring to the investigation as an “illegal Joseph McCarthy style With Hunt” that has “shattered so many innocent lives.”