Rosenstein Defends Mueller Probe: People ‘Entitled to Be Frustrated,’ But It’s ‘Appropriate and Independent’

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who may very well be on the outs after the midterms, gave a rare interview to The Wall Street Journal today vociferously defending special counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia probe.

Rosenstein told the Journal, “People are entitled to be frustrated, I can accept that. But at the end of the day, the public will have confidence that the cases we brought were warranted by the evidence and that it was an appropriate use of resources.”

He said the investigation has been “appropriate and independent.”

There are, of course, lingering questions about that recent report saying Rosenstein had at one point talked about secretly recording Trump, though subsequent reporting said people had interpreted it as a joke.

Rosenstein told the Journal that “the president knows that I am prepared to do this job as long as he wants me to do this job,” but he apparently declined to talk specifically about that allegation.

Bloomberg reported this morning that Mueller is ready to “issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections.” The report notes that Rosenstein apparently has encouraged Mueller to “wrap up the investigation as expeditiously as possible.”

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