Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has recently drawn increasing scrutiny from conservatives who call the Justice Department’s Russia probe illegitimate and biased, and several false alarms of Rosenstein’s imminent firing by President Doanald Trump have rippled through Washington. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Trump's GOP allies keep up pressure on Rosenstein A new demand from House Republicans shows that special counsel Robert Mueller’s supervisor remains a political target.

President Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress have renewed their pressure campaign against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, demanding new information about his oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal investigation.

In a newly released letter, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and a handful of Trump-aligned House Republicans have asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reveal whether Rosenstein consulted him before approving an FBI raid on the office, home and hotel room of Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen.


“We would like to know if you approved, were consulted or had any involvement in this decision by the Department of Justice,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent to Rosenstein on Monday and released Wednesday.

The letter was signed by Jordan, and GOP Reps. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, Lee Zeldin of New York, and Ron DeSantis and Matt Gaetz of Florida. The Republicans suggested that Sessions should have played a role in the decision even though he has recused himself from Mueller’s probe of 2016 Kremlin election meddling.

It’s the latest salvo in an escalating GOP offensive against Rosenstein, who, thanks to Sessions’ recusal, directly supervises Mueller and signs off on his major actions. Rosenstein has recently drawn increasing scrutiny from conservatives who call the Justice Department’s Russia probe illegitimate and biased. Several false alarms of Rosenstein’s imminent firing by Trump have rippled through Washington.

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House Republicans specifically charge that Rosenstein has resisted providing Justice Department documents to Congress that could shed light on the FBI’s 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email — as well as the investigation of Trump campaign contacts with Russia.

“Rod Rosenstein has a problem with Congress,” said Meadows, who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus and frequently speaks with Trump. Meadows complained that Rosenstein has been “looking the other way” when House Republicans demand Justice Department documents.

Rosenstein has promised to lead an extensive and rapid effort to turn over thousands of documents to Congress, but has faced increasingly withering criticism — and even the threat of impeachment — from Trump supporters in Congress.

“To the extent he addresses that … that will serve him well. If not, perhaps the consequences of that might be even greater than what the president might invoke,” Meadows said.

Democrats worry the document demands are simply a pretext for Trump to remove Rosenstein and attempt to assert greater control over the Mueller investigation, a probe that has become increasingly perilous for Trump’s inner circle.

Rosenstein reportedly approved the Cohen raid earlier this month based on information derived from Mueller’s probe, but he passed the information to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

In their letter, the House Republicans said Rosenstein was wrong to do so, and should have referred the matter to Sessions.

“In light of the fact that the action taken was not directly related to the Russia investigation, and the subject was the personal attorney of the president of the United States, it would appear that the Attorney General should have been involved,” the House Republicans wrote in their letter.

Justice Department officials said they intended to review the letter, but that generally they wouldn't discuss specific recusal decision by Sessions “because doing so could confirm the existence of ongoing investigations or the scope or nature of those ongoing investigations.”

The letter is the latest indication that Trump’s allies don’t intend to let up on Rosenstein, despite his efforts to bend to their increasingly aggressive calls to release information related to ongoing FBI and Justice Department investigations.

Last week, Rosenstein approved the release to Congress of memos written by former FBI Director James Comey documenting several early 2017 interactions with Trump. The memos, believed to be important to Mueller’s inquiry into whether Trump sought to obstruct the federal Russia investigation, describe Comey’s discomfort with a president he believed was urging him to drop the matter. Trump fired Comey last May. With Sessions recused because of his own 2016 campaign contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Rosenstein appointed Mueller to take over the Justice Department’s investigation.

Some GOP lawmakers said Rosenstein’s decision to turn over the memos, despite their centrality to the Mueller probe, bought him some breathing room on Capitol Hill. That view was bolstered earlier in the week when House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy announced they had reached an agreement with the Justice Department to expedite the delivery of thousands of documents “regarding the FBI’s decision making in 2016 and 2017.”

Details of the agreement have been sparse. Meadows said Wednesday he’s only seen “parts of it” but that he’s confident it will “speed the process up.”

“My understanding is it gives a very short window once we identify the documents to have them produced to Congress,” he said.

Still, the new questions about how Rosenstein handled the Cohen raid suggest that lasting peace has not been reached between House Republicans and the Justice Department.

“The message is simple: The attorney general is either doing the job or not doing the job,” Meadows said, adding, “When you have a no-knock raid on an attorney for the president, I think it’s important that we have some clarity on who made the decisions and how the decisions were made.”