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So we ll get to that a little bit later on tonight. but i just want to underscore, what rod rosenstein is doing, i recognize it s been a little off the radar. it was a q&a at the newseum in d.c. then it was him at this bar association meeting for their annual meeting for law day in maryland. and i realize those things seem off the radar, right? but he really is doing something here. house republicans who support trump really are planning something, apparently for early next week where they re going to try to bring impeachment proceedings against rosenstein directly to the floor of the house without putting it through even the committee process or holding any hearings. the reason they re going to try this, the reason they want to get rid of rosenstein is because they have think it s the way to get rid of the mueller investigation. well, the way they are laying a predicate for doing this next week, for an impeachment effort against rosenstein or a firing of him by the president, is that ....
So they can hand them over to the white house, basically to tip the white house off about their the president s liability in this investigation. saying that they suspect members of congress are doing that. has any member of congress ever tried to do that or been busted for doing something like that? is there any historical precedent for that that you know of? not busted in a big way. rosenstein mentioned one case was not exactly the same, but in that speech today where congressman carl vinson of georgia was asking robert jackson, who is a hero, who was attorney general, as you were mentioning earlier, for fbi information on a labor dispute with the navy, and that is when jackson said no, this would damage national security, would compromise our investigation, and vinson laid off. and that s why congress usually does not do things like that. so when we see members of congress, i agree with you, very possibly trying to abuse their office, get sensitive information out of the fbi and ....
Like everybody talks about the same thing all day long, this is one of those nights when i m talking about something nobody else is talking about. i recognize that. but i think this is really, really important. i think a lot of stuff people are talking about right now is deliberate noise that is designed to be enjoyable and ob- obscuring of what we should be looking at. this you think is the real deal. rosenstein decided to do another public appearance today. he doesn t have to do any of these. right? if you re the deputy attorney general you have a lot on your plate. you re running the justice department. in his case he s also overseeing the russia investigation, which is a big deal right now. he s fending off live impeachment demands from republican members of congress and a deliberate strategy by the president to try to set him up for something so he can blame him for anything to justify firing him. right? all of this is going on in rosenstein s life. and in the middle of that rod ....
Law day celebrations. this year s theme is one i particularly value. the separation of powers. [laughter] why is everybody laughing? joining us now is nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. mr. beschloss, thank you for being here. i m so happy to have you here. me too. thanks, rachel. once again i m sort of talking about something that i m stuck on as something that seems particularly important to me that i m not sure anybody else in the news business is stuck on, but i am struck by rod rosenstein making these two sort of rare public appearances this week, both of which he seems to be drawing a line in the sand, citing his heroes from justice departments past and saying i m not going to do what they think i m going to do. i m going to draw the line here, i m not going to be ....
In that fight, rod rosenstein says i won t do it, i will not hand over fbi internal documents from ongoing cases. that is a bedrock principle. i won t do it. and this is not a theoretical thing. first of all, republicans in congress really are demanding that he does that. and they say they re going to impeach him for not doing it. and second of all, ongoing cases, we ve got, and a whole bunch of interesting stuff happened in the ongoing cases today related to this investigation. mueller s prosecutors today went to federal court in d.c. to get a continuance, basically an extension in their case against 13 russian individuals and three russian businesses which they brought felony charges against in mid february. in today s filing mueller s prosecutors explained shockingly that they haven t been able to get those russians to come to court in the united states yet. on the date the grand jury returned the indictment the court issued summonses for the defendants to appear. the government ha ....