Article snippet: Former Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, in a speech before the Greater Baltimore Committee's (GBC) annual meeting, described the firing as a difficult judgment call that was made after Comey strayed from the long-standing practices the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) adhere to when dealing with open investigations. The recently retired DOJ official also defended his oversight of the counterintelligence investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election amid criticism that Comey’s firing was an attempt to obstruct the probe, which was ultimately completed by special counsel ADVERTISEMENT "I would never have allowed anyone to interfere with the investigation," Rosenstein told the GBC, according to prepared remarks. The White House initially pinned the decision to fire Comey on Rosenstein’s May 9, 2017, memo, a three-page document that transformed the former deputy attorney general from a little-known Justice Department official to one of the most scrutinized officials in the Russia probe. Trump later told NBC News’s Lester Holt that the Russia investigation factored into his thinking and that he would have fired Comey "regardless of recommendation." Mueller investigated Comey’s firing among roughly a dozen episodes of possible obstruction of justice by Trump. The special counsel ultimately did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed the probe, writing in his report that his investigators... Link to the full article to read more