Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein met with leaders of the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill Thursday.
Rosenstein was involved in the firing earlier this week of FBI Director James Comey, but intelligence Chairman Richard Burr told reporters Comey did not come up in the meeting.
Rosenstein declined to answer shouted questions after the 45-minute meeting of whether he chose to write the memo that the White House has used as justification for firing Comey.
Burr said after their meeting that it was not his call on whether Rosenstein should be removed from overseeing the Russia investigation because of the Comey fiasco.
“We don’t have the luxury of choosing who we work with,” Burr said after their meeting.
Asked if he believed President Donald Trump when he claimed that Comey told him three times that he was not the subject of an FBI investigation, Burr said, “We can’t comment on that. That’s a conversation that supposedly happened between Director Comey and the President.”
Burr, R-North Carolina, and vice chairman Mark Warner, D-Virginia, both left a hearing with acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe for the meeting.
Dana Boente, the acting director of DOJ’s national security division, was also present.
Rosenstein has also expressed frustration at how the White House handled the Comey dismissal, and using his reputation as cover for how it was done, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.
Vice President Mike Pence and deputy White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday repeatedly cited Rosenstein’s memo on Comey recommending the FBI director’s removal, leveraging his reputation and bipartisan Senate confirmation vote.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
