taken forward by the current home secretary, to introduce the sensitive weapons bill. violence tasks force, which brings together ministers and representatives from across this house with police and others to deal with this issue for the first time. >> thank you. order. in about 10 minutes, we will take you live to the white house east room for the reception for the national teacher of the year ceremony. the hill ranks the 20 teachers of the year from each state as well as the district of columbia , for the annual teachers of the year week. the president will speak. we will have that live at 4:30 eastern. in the meantime, a portion of today's washington journal with npr justice correspondent carrie johnson. >> carrie johnson is back at our desk one day after rob

daynstein appeared at a law event. he was pretty tightlipped about most aspects of his role overseeing the mueller investigation, but -- some members of congress have drawn of impeachment for rod rosenstein. explain who is behind that effort and white they are looking to impeach him? host: it appears to be focused on the -- guest: it appears to be focused on the house freedom caucus, led by mark meadows. they have issued this draft of impeachment for allegedly not sharing information. what democrats in the house say is that this is all subterfuge the robert mueller investigation into russian interference. explain the process for impeachment. is it the same as and teaching a president?

guest: is -- it is an intense process. -- two actually impeach somebody like the deputy attorney general would require two thirds of a majority vote of the senate. most -- believe there is no chance this will happen to rod rosenstein, but it is certainly an irritant. i think his comments reflect the passion with which he is feeling this effort. comments from his yesterday when asked about the articles of impeachment. >> i don't know who wrote it. but it illustrates an important principle about the rule of law and the distinction of how we operate. we make mistakes, not to say we are flawless. but if we can accuse someone of wrongdoing, we have to have admissible evidence, incredible witnesses, have to be able to prove our case in court and the fix our signature to the charging document.

that is something that not everybody appreciates. we would love to talk about pfizer applications, and a lot of the people i see talking about it seemed to not recognize what it is. a pfizer application is a warrant. just like a search warrant. in order to get one, you need a signed by a federal law enforcement officer who swears the information is true to the best of his knowledge. that is the way we operate. and if it is wrong, and sometimes it is, that person will face consequences. -- you could face disciplinary action or even prosecution. -- ive people accountable just don't have anything to say about documents like that that nobody has the courage to put their name on and leak in that way. but i can tell you there have been people making threats, privately and publicly against

me, for quite some time. i think they should understand by now, the department of justice is not going to be extorted. we will do what is required by the rule of law. any threats that anyone makes will not affect the way we do our job. johnson joining us. the last part on extortion, the one that made the headlines. here is today's paper from the washington times. how did you take that? is a remarkable self-defense and defense of the justice department by the deputy attorney general. all the more remarkable because rod rosenstein has made a lot of concessions to republicans in congress this year. a registereds republican, a member of the federalist society. he has basically been under siege for months i conservative republicans in the house. this is the first moment he has defended himself and said, we will not give you everything you

want because we need to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations. standards of evidence and proof that you are not using against me when you issue an impeachment threat against me. this was a remarkable stand, and one that mark meadows, the leader of the faction against him, has tweeted -- maybe rod rosenstein should quit or leave office if he views us as trying to extort him. i don't see any sign of that happening voluntarily. host: what is your expectation of how this will impact the mueller probe question mark guest: he is standing between the house republicans and bob mueller now. rod rosenstein says he will only get rid of bob mueller for a good cause and he has not seen such a cause. he has been supervising the investigation closely and says it has been productive and fruitful. mueller has charged 19 people and entities in less than one year, and now there is a process

between then council at the sitting president of the united states. i think that is why you are seeing the pressure and heat turned up on the justice department. johnson is with us until 8:30 this morning. phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, republicans, (202) 748-8001. (202) 748-8002 for independence. the new york times story on the list of questions that robert mueller apparently wants to ask president trump getting attention. what was your take away? guest: to be clear, this is not a list of all the questions the special counsel might have. secondly, robert mueller and his team do not leak. so, this came from somebody close to the president or his legal team. the interesting question is why it is coming out now. the president has been trying to harangue the special counsel for allegedly asked, when in fact --

for alleged leaks,, when in fact the -- seems to be coming -- host: what did you think of the president's tweets? >> the president -- no interest -- many of them deal with context between president trump, his campaign, and possibly people in russia during the campaign. also tweeted you cannot charge someone with obstruction of justice if there is no underlying crime. that is -- not true. scooter libby, whom the president just -- >> the president continued to focus on this. it is as no collusion, hoax, and there is no

obstruction of justice. that is a set up and trap. war,rth korea over nuclear negotiations over trade deficits, negotiations on nafta, and much more. witchhunt! guest: to be fair to the president, people close to him have been telling him for one year now that the investigation, and whether any americans in the trunk cap cooperated -- trump camp cooperated is taking up a lot of his energy, and he's frustrated that he cannot focus he doesn't understand why this investigation is taking so long in his field. view.his as someone who was covered investigations for 21 years, this investigation is moving fast.

st: how long has one of the special counsel investigations taken? ? guest: that old model expired in the 1980's. i talked with historians who , written booksis on the watergate special counsel. they say the mueller team is moving at an historic clip along with the best special prosecutors in history. and jeffhe president sessions say this isn't moving fast enough, by historical patterns it is moving quickly. host: william is up first in atlanta. caller: a comment regarding the questions that have been in the papers from the mueller organization about what they want to ask the president.

we have leaks within the mueller team itself. is that a concern to america? guest: the new york times has not disclosed to gave it those materials, but the story have appeared on air saying the president's lawyers wrote down those questions and they were provided by someone not part of donald trump's legal team. i take issue with the premise of your question. that appears to be a leak from someone close to president trump not the justice department. brenda, one for democrats. mr. long: i wanted to say -- caller: this is the first time i heard broad rosenstein address anything going on. i am very impressed by his , andty, his intelligence the seriousness with which he

took his oath of office. as far as donald trump claiming this is a witchhunt, the only witchhunt that was conducted was conducted by donald trump himself when he hired private investigators to go to hawaii to investigate president obama. i'm still waiting to be amazed by all the information is private investigators or finding out about obama. i would be willing to bet the private investigators are still waiting to be paid. after listening to road rosenstein -- rod rosenstein that this is going in the right direction and conducted but the most dignity, rodmost law-abiding -- rosenstein has taken his oath of office extremely seriously. host: got your point.

guest: for many americans this was the first time they saw him speak. he is a familiar figure in the justice department. he has been working there almost 30 years. he is a career guy. he is by the book. that is why his remarks were remarkable in terms of a self-defense. against what he views as improper incursions. host: he was generally tightlipped but did get questions on it from reporters and members of the public yesterday. here is one of those interactions. >> i am wondering what your mindset is on whether a sitting president can be indicted. if not, why not?

>> that was to questions. this is not a press conference. i'm not going to answer this in the context of current matters. you should not draw any inference. the department of justice has opined that a sitting president cannot be indicted. i don't have anything more to say about it. somebody in the department reached a legal conclusion. that is what it is. guest: this has been occupying a lot of my time and energy over the last 69 months. the justice department internal unit called the office of legal counsel has a couple of times opined a sitting president may not be charged with a crime. that applies during the president's term in office. one might seal the indictment

after he or she leaves office. is not clear the extent to which a president can be subpoenaed. there are -- there is some case law from the nixon error that seems to suggest a balancing 'sst between the president power, and the need and right and no word argue in favor of the criminal investigators. that could be a question coming down the pike. -- the pipe. host: remind us of the history. issued all clinton was grand jury subpoena. he entered into voluntary negotiations with ken starr and appeared voluntarily. he was recorded in the white house. the tv feed was the into the grand jury. host: lines for democrats. republicans.

springfield, illinois. good morning. >> good morning. what kerryus as to might want to say about the fact donaldring the campaign from theuested hillary'so hack emails, and that it happened not too long afterwards. your thoughts would be appreciated. guest: one of the things that we have not yet seen from the special counsel team is any charges related to the hacking of hillary clinton, the dnc emails, or any other emails. we know there has been an issue of interest. we are waiting to see what they produce on that.

thatdition to the fact donald trump basically invited the russians to find hillary clinton's emails and release them, people close to donald trump announcer: we take you live to the white house, where president trump will shortly honor the 2018 national teacher of the year. live coverage here on c-span. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [applause] pres. trump: what beautiful singing i just heard. thank you. that was so beautiful. [applause] pres. trump: