Rosenstein pushes back.

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein took aim Tuesday at Republican lawmakers who have drafted articles of impeachment against him, saying that he would not comment on documents “that nobody has the courage to put their name on” and asserting that he will not change his behavior in the face of threats.

“I think they should understand by now that the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” Rosenstein said. “We’re going to do what’s required by the rule of law, and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job.”

This was at an event at the Newseum in DC to celebrate Law Day (I kind of thought every day was law day). Yesterday the Post reported that Republican ratbags had drafted impeachment articles against Rosenstein.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — led by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) — have been in a long-running feud with Rosenstein and the Justice Department over what they see as a failure to turn over documents on a number of controversial topics, including the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

So that Republican ratbags could use them to sabotage the special counsel’s investigation; gee, how mean of Rosenstein.

Critics see the move as an effort to pressure the Justice Department to turn over documents it shouldn’t, or detract from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election. Rosenstein supervises that probe, because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from it. The deputy attorney general has in recent weeks become a particular focus of the president’s rage.

And Republican ratbags want to help him put his rage into action.

Asked about the articles of impeachment, Rosenstein quipped, “they can’t even resist leaking their own drafts,” and then compared the document to one the Justice Department seeks in charging someone with a crime.

“We have to affix our signature to the charging document,” he said, adding later, “I just don’t have anything to say about documents like that, that nobody has the courage to put their name on, and that they leak in that way.”

Gutless Republican ratbags.