WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed secretly recording President Donald Trump last year amid law enforcement concerns about chaos in the White House, according to people familiar with exchanges at the time. But one person who was present said Rosenstein was just being sarcastic.
Rosenstein’s comments were first reported by The New York Times, which also said that he raised the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump as unfit for office.
The revelation creates even greater uncertainty for Rosenstein in his position at a time when Trump has lambasted Justice Department leadership and publicly humiliated both him and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The conversation about the possible recording took place at a tense May 2017 meeting during the tumultuous period that followed Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, a decision that dismayed many rank-and-file bureau agents and that the White House said was based on the Justice Department’s recommendation.
Among the participants at the meeting was Andrew McCabe, the FBI official who was temporarily elevated to director after Comey’s firing and who documented conversations with senior officials, including Rosenstein, in memos that have been provided to special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his Trump-Russia investigation.
The interactions lay bare the conflicts within the FBI and Justice Department early in the Trump administration after Rosenstein, just weeks into his job, wrote a memo critical of Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation that the White House used as justification for firing the FBI director.
Friday’s news reports threatened to cloud Rosenstein’s fate at the Justice Department, with some conservative commentators calling for him to be fired immediately.
Any dismissal could affect Mueller’s Russia probe given that Rosenstein appointed Mueller and oversees his work.
Trump, for his part, ignored questions shouted from reporters as he arrived for an evening rally in Springfield, Missouri. The White House did not respond to questions about Rosenstein’s reported remarks.
It was difficult amid the conflicting accounts to discern the precise context for his comments and how they were intended.
The Justice Department, for instance, released an email from one attendee who said Rosenstein’s “statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president.”
Rosenstein himself called the Times story “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
“I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”