Thread: Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment

Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment





Two weeks into his job as deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein was confronted with a crisis: the president’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director.CreditCreditT.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times



September 21, 2018

Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt



WASHINGTON — The deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit.


Mr. Rosenstein made these suggestions in the spring of 2017 when Mr. Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director plunged the White House into turmoil. Over the ensuing days, the president divulgedclassified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations emerged that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide.

Mr. Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job. He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the president’s dismissal of Mr. Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Mr. Rosenstein was caught off guard when Mr. Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used.

Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Mr. Rosenstein’s actions and comments.

None of Mr. Rosenstein’s proposals apparently came to fruition. It is not clear how determined he was about seeing them through, though he did tell Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment.

The extreme suggestions show Mr. Rosenstein’s state of mind in the disorienting days that followed Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Sitting in on Mr. Trump’s interviews with prospective F.B.I. directors and facing attacks for his own role in Mr. Comey’s firing, Mr. Rosenstein had an up-close view of the tumult. Mr. Rosenstein appeared conflicted, regretful and emotional, according to people who spoke with him at the time.

Mr. Rosenstein disputed this account.

“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect,” he said in a statement. “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.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Mr. Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Mr. Rosenstein made it sarcastically.






Mr. Rosenstein acknowledged that Mr. Comey was a role model but said he thought it was appropriate to seek a new leader for the F.B.I.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times



But according to the others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other F.B.I. officials who were interviewing to be the bureau’s director could also secretly record Mr. Trump.

Mr. McCabe, who was later fired from the F.B.I., declined to comment. His memos have been turned over to the special counsel investigating whether Trump associates conspired with Russia’s election interference, Robert S. Mueller III, according to a lawyer for Mr. McCabe. “A set of those memos remained at the F.B.I. at the time of his departure in late January 2018,” the lawyer, Michael R. Bromwich, said of his client. “He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.”

The revelations about Mr. Rosenstein come as Mr. Trump has unleashedanother round of attacks in recent days on federal law enforcement, saying in an interview with the Hill newspaper that he hopes his assaults on the F.B.I. turn out to be “one of my crowning achievements” and that he only wished he had terminated Mr. Comey sooner.

“If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Mr. Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention. Say, ‘I don’t want that guy.’ Or at least fired him the first day on the job.”
Days after ascending to the role of the nation’s No. 2 law enforcement officer, Mr. Rosenstein was thrust into a crisis.


On a brisk May day, Mr. Rosenstein and his boss, Mr. Sessions, joined Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, where the president informed them of his plan to oust Mr. Comey. To the surprise of White House aides who were trying to talk the president out of it, Mr. Rosenstein embraced the idea, even offering to write the memo about the Clinton email inquiry. He turned it in shortly after.

A day later, Mr. Trump announced the firing, and White House aides released Mr. Rosenstein’s memo, labeling it the basis for Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Democrats sharply criticized Mr. Rosenstein, accusing him of helping to create a cover story for the president to rationalize the termination.

“You wrote a memo you knew would be used to perpetuate a lie,” Senator Christopher Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote on Twitter. "You own this debacle.”

The president’s reliance on his memo caught Mr. Rosenstein by surprise, and he became angry at Mr. Trump, according to people who spoke to Mr. Rosenstein at the time. He grew concerned that his reputation had suffered harm and wondered whether Mr. Trump had motives beyond Mr. Comey’s treatment of Mrs. Clinton for ousting him, the people said.






How the Mueller Investigation Could Play Out for Trump


If Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finds evidence that Mr. Trump broke the law, he will have decisions to make about how to proceed. We explain them.

May 23, 2018

A determined Mr. Rosenstein began telling associates that he would ultimately be “vindicated” for his role in the matter. One week after the firing, Mr. Rosenstein met with Mr. McCabe and at least four other senior Justice Department officials, in part to explain his role in the situation.

During their discussion, Mr. Rosenstein expressed frustration at how Mr. Trump had conducted the search for a new F.B.I. director, saying the president was failing to take the candidate interviews seriously. A handful of politicians and law enforcement officials, including Mr. McCabe, were under consideration.

To Mr. Rosenstein, the hiring process was emblematic of broader dysfunction stemming from the White House. He said both the process and the administration itself were in disarray, according to two people familiar with the discussion.

Mr. Rosenstein then raised the idea of wearing a recording device or “wire,” as he put it, to secretly tape the president when he visited the White House. One participant asked whether Mr. Rosenstein was serious, and he replied animatedly that he was.

If not him, then Mr. McCabe or other F.B.I. officials interviewing with Mr. Trump for the job could perhaps wear a wire or otherwise record the president, Mr. Rosenstein offered. White House officials never checked his phone when he arrived for meetings there, Mr. Rosenstein added, implying it would be easy to secretly record Mr. Trump.

The suggestion itself was remarkable. While informants or undercover agents regularly use concealed listening devices to surreptitiously gather evidence for federal investigators, they are typically targeting drug kingpins and Mafia bosses in criminal investigations, not a president viewed as ineffectively conducting his duties.

In the end, the idea went nowhere, the officials said. But they called Mr. Rosenstein’s comments an example of how erratically he was behaving while he was taking part in the interviews for a replacement F.B.I. director, considering the appointment of a special counsel and otherwise running the day-to-day operations of the more than 100,000 people at the Justice Department.

Mr. Rosenstein’s suggestion about the 25th Amendment was similarly a sensitive topic. The amendment allows for the vice president and majority of cabinet officials to declare the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

Merely conducting a straw poll, even if Mr. Kelly and Mr. Sessions were on board, would be risky if another administration official were to tell the president, who could fire everyone involved to end the effort.




Andrew G. McCabe, who became acting director of the F.B.I. after Mr. Comey was fired, memorialized his interactions with Mr. Rosenstein in memos.CreditAlex Wong/Getty Images



Mr.. McCabe told other F.B.I. officials of his conversation with Mr. Rosenstein. None of the people interviewed said that they knew of him ever consulting Mr. Kelly or Mr. Sessions

The episode is the first known instance of a named senior administration official weighing the 25th Amendment. Unidentified others have been said to discuss it, including an unnamed senior administration official who wrote an Op-Ed for The New York Times. That person’s identity is unknown to journalists in the Times news department.

Some of the details in Mr. McCabe’s memos suggested that Mr. Rosenstein had regrets about the firing of Mr. Comey. During a May 12 meeting with Mr. McCabe, Mr. Rosenstein was upset and emotional, Mr. McCabe wrote, and said that he wished Mr. Comey were still at the F.B.I. so he could bounce ideas off him.

Mr. Rosenstein also asked F.B.I. officials on May 14, five days after Mr. Comey’s firing, about calling him for advice about a special counsel. The officials responded that such a call was a bad idea because Mr. Comey was no longer in the government. And they were surprised, believing that the idea contradicted Mr. Rosenstein’s stated reason for backing Mr. Comey’s dismissal — that he had shown bad judgment in the Clinton email inquiry.

Mr. Rosenstein, 53, is a lifelong public servant. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal judge before joining the Justice Department in 1990 and was appointed United States attorney for Maryland.

Mr. Rosenstein also considered appointing as special counsel James M. Cole, himself a former deputy attorney general, three of the people said. Mr. Cole would have made an even richer target for Mr. Trump’s ire than has Mr. Mueller, a lifelong Republican: Mr. Cole served four years as the No. 2 in the Justice Department during the Obama administration and worked as a private lawyer representing one of Mrs. Clinton’s longtime confidants, Sidney Blumenthal.

Mr. Cole and Mr. Rosenstein have known each for years. Mr. Cole, who declined to comment, was Mr. Rosenstein’s supervisor early in his Justice Department career when he was prosecuting public corruption cases.


Mr. Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Mr. Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation because Mr. Sessions recused himself because of his role as a prominent Trump campaign supporter. Many of those same critics also have targeted Mr. McCabe, who was fired in March for failing to be forthcoming in a Justice Department inspector general investigation. Mr. McCabe’s actions were referred to federal prosecutors in Washington.

The president’s allies have seized on Mr. McCabe’s lack of candor to paint a damning picture of the F.B.I. under Mr. Comey and assert the Russia investigation is tainted.

The Justice Department denied a request in late July from Mr. Trump’s congressional allies to release Mr. McCabe’s memos, citing an ongoing investigation that the lawmakers believed to be Mr. Mueller’s. Mr. Rosenstein not only supervises that investigation but is considered by the president’s lawyers as a witness for their defense because he also sought the dismissal of Mr. Comey, which is being investigated as possible obstruction of justice.


Matt Apuzzo and Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting.



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/u...amendment.html

NYT: ROSENSTEIN WANTED TO WEAR WIRE


PLOT TO REMOVE TRUMP

Report: Rod Rosenstein Wanted 25th Amendment Ouster for Trump, Secret Oval Office Recordings





September 21, 2018

Joshua Caplan


The New York Times writes that Rosenstein shared these plans with “other Justice Department and FBI officials,” all of whom relayed their accounts to the paper anonymously.

During a series of July 2017 meetings with fellow Justice Department and FBI officials, Rosenstein reportedly made the explosive suggestion of recording the president, and while the plot never materialized, he reportedly told then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that he believed it was possible to convince Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to later invoke the 25th Amendment.


Rosenstein denied the story in a statement to the New York Times. A DOJ spokeswoman, curiously, did not deny that Rosenstein suggested secretly taping Trump but instead provided an anonymous eyewitness who suggested the remark was in jest.

“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect,” he said in a statement. “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.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Mr. Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Mr. Rosenstein made it sarcastically.


But according to the others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other F.B.I. officials who were interviewing to be the bureau’s director could also secretly record Mr. Trump.

This is a developing story.


https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ce-recordings/

Being reported - This meeting supposedly took place on May 16, 2017. Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page were among those in the room.

Dirty Cop Rosenstein Denies He Wanted to Secretly Tape President Trump in 2017 — But Signed FISA Doc to Spy on Trump




September 21, 2018

As Cristina Laila reported earlier on Friday —


https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...comeys-firing/



Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last year spoke with DOJ and FBI officials about wearing a wire and secretly recording President Trump to be able to build a case that Trump is unfit to hold office.


DAG Rosenstein began plotting Trump’s removal shortly after FBI Director Comey was fired.

James Comey was fired on May 9th, 2017 and DAG Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump-Russia collusion a week later.

Rosenstein has been acting as Attorney General since Jeff Sessions recused himself from his duties after he was sworn in.

Rod Rosenstein denied that he proposed to spy on Trump.

Bloomberg Politics reported:

Washington (AP) — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is denying a report in The New York Times that he suggested last year he secretly record President Donald Trump in the White House to expose chaos in the administration.

Rosenstein says the story is “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
The report also says Rosenstein floated the idea of trying to remove Trump from office through the 25th Amendment.

The Times cites several people who described the episodes but were not named in Friday’s report.

Rod Rosenstein signed a FISA warrant to spy on Trump in 2017.




https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...ump-officials/

Laura Ingraham






@IngrahamAngle



He needs to go. Today.






Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment
nytimes.com

Rosenstein Proposed Secretly Recording Trump, Invoking 25th Amendment



If this latest revelation from the New York Times doesn't drive President Trump to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, or Congress to impeach him, then we can't imagine what would.

Fri, 09/21/2018 - 14:09
589 SHARES

If this latest revelation from the New York Times doesn't drive President Trump to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, or convince Congress to impeach him, then we can't imagine what would.



In a shocking report citing a bevy of anonymous DOJ officials, the NYT recounted on Friday an aborted mutiny attempt organized by Rosenstein, who allegedly tried to organize members of Trump's cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to oust Trump from office. In an attempt to persuade the clearly reluctant members of Trump's cabinet, Rosenstein suggested that he or other officials should secretly tape Trump "to expose the chaos" he said was engulfing the West Wing. According to NYT, the sources were either briefed on Rosenstein's plans, or learned about it from the files of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired after being disgraced by an inspector general investigation. ABC News, which also reported the story, cited sources familiar with McCabe's files. A grand jury is also weighing whether to press charges against McCabe for allegedly misleading the inspector general.

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Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Mr. Rosenstein’s actions and comments.
None of Mr. Rosenstein’s proposals apparently came to fruition. It is not clear how determined he was about seeing them through, though he did tell Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment.

According to the NYT, this all happened during the spring of 2017, shortly after Trump cited a letter that Rosenstein had penned criticizing former FBI Director James Comey's handling of the Clinton probe as justification to fire Comey. Rosenstein reportedly felt he had been "used" by the president as an excuse to fire Comey. Rosenstein soon began telling colleagues that he would ultimately be "vindicated" for his role in Comey's firing. Around the same time, he began to express his displeasure with Trump's handling of the hiring process for Comey's replacement.

The president’s reliance on his memo caught Mr. Rosenstein by surprise, and he became angry at Mr. Trump, according to people who spoke to Mr. Rosenstein at the time. He grew concerned that his reputation had suffered harm and wondered whether Mr. Trump had motives beyond Mr. Comey’s treatment of Mrs. Clinton for ousting him, the people said.
A determined Mr. Rosenstein began telling associates that he would ultimately be “vindicated” for his role in the matter. One week after the firing, Mr. Rosenstein met with Mr. McCabe and at least four other senior Justice Department officials, in part to explain his role in the situation.
During their discussion, Mr. Rosenstein expressed frustration at how Mr. Trump had conducted the search for a new F.B.I. director, saying the president was failing to take the candidate interviews seriously. A handful of politicians and law enforcement officials, including Mr. McCabe, were under consideration.

Rosenstein also tried to recruit some of his would-be co-conspirators to surreptitiously record Trump in the Oval Office.

Mr. Rosenstein then raised the idea of wearing a recording device or "wire," as he put it, to secretly tape the president when he visited the White House. One participant asked whether Mr. Rosenstein was serious, and he replied animatedly that he was.

However, although Rosenstein "appeared conflicted, regretful and emotional" during what can only be described as a coup attempt against a sitting president, even the paper admit that his conduct in attempting to solicit the illicit wiretapping of a sitting president was extremely reckless and unwarranted, and that, if uncovered, it could be used as grounds to fire Rosenstein.

If not him, then Mr. McCabe or other F.B.I. officials interviewing with Mr. Trump for the job could perhaps wear a wire or otherwise record the president, Mr. Rosenstein offered. White House officials never checked his phone when he arrived for meetings there, Mr. Rosenstein added, implying it would be easy to secretly record Mr. Trump.
The suggestion itself was remarkable. While informants or undercover agents regularly use concealed listening devices to surreptitiously gather evidence for federal investigators, they are typically targeting drug kingpins and Mafia bosses in criminal investigations, not a president viewed as ineffectively conducting his duties.
In the end, the idea went nowhere, the officials said. But they called Mr. Rosenstein’s comments an example of how erratically he was behaving while he was taking part in the interviews for a replacement F.B.I. director, considering the appointment of a special counsel and otherwise running the day-to-day operations of the more than 100,000 people at the Justice Department.

The Times and ABC reported that Rosenstein told McCabe that he believed Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly would go along with the plan. Another source said they believed Rosenstein was being sarcastic when he made the comment about recording Trump

One source who was in the meeting confirmed that Rosenstein did make a remark about recording Trump with the use of a wire. But the source insists: "The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president."

Rosenstein has decried the story as "factually incorrect" and said that "based on my personal dealings" with the president, that there isn't any basis to invoke the 25th amendment. This, of course, is tantamount to a deep state insider admitting that there is no factual basis to impeach Trump.

Mr. Rosenstein disputed this account.
"The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect," he said in a statement. "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."

A lawyer representing McCabe told CNN and the Times that his client had documented his conversations in Rosenstein in a series of memos, which he later turned over to Mueller more than a year ago. However, a set of those memos was left at the FBI when McCabe departed.

McCabe's lawyer, Michael Bromwich, said in a statement to CNN that his client "drafted memos to memorialize significant discussions he had with high level officials and preserved them so he would have an accurate, contemporaneous record of those discussions."
"When he was interviewed by the special counsel more than a year ago, he gave all of his memos - classified and unclassified - to the special counsel's office. A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018. He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos," Bromwich added.

The Washington Post reported that FBI lawyer Lisa Page (the former lover of disgraced FBI special agent Peter Strzok) was also at the meeting where wiretapping was discussed. WaPo also said that McCabe had pushed for the DOJ to open an investigation into the president, to which Rosenstein replied, "what do you want to do Andy, wire the president?"
While Rosenstein and Trump clearly never saw eye to eye, the level of resentment that Rosenstein harbored toward the president was not previously known. Unsurprisingly, the story has already fired up speculation that Rosenstein may have been the anonymous administration official who penned a critical op-ed that was published earlier this month in the New York Times. Underscoring the seriousness of these allegations, CNN reported that the McCabe memos that were described to ABC and the Times have been turned over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Trading News‏ @4xInsight
Trading News Retweeted Trading News
I think the NYT just revealed who anonymous is!

Trading News added,
Trading News @4xInsight
Sept. 21 (New York Times) -- Rod Rosenstein, the official who appointed Robert Mueller, once proposed secretly taping President Trump and removing him via the 25th Amendment. -
11:10 AM - 21 Sep 2018

Rosentein has been working as a public servant since clerking for a federal judge after graduating from Harvard Law School, according to the Times, which also notes that Rosenstein also considered appointing James Cole, a former Deputy AG, as special counsel. Cole, the Times noted, was a lawyer and longtime confidant for close Clinton associate Sydney Blumenthal.

Rosenstein, 53, is a lifelong public servant. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal judge before joining the Justice Department in 1990 and was appointed United States attorney for Maryland. Mr. Rosenstein also considered appointing as special counsel James M. Cole, himself a former deputy attorney general, three of the people said. Mr. Cole would have made an even richer target for Mr. Trump’s ire than has Mr. Mueller, a lifelong Republican: Mr. Cole served four years as the No. 2 in the Justice Department during the Obama administration and worked as a private lawyer representing one of Mrs. Clinton’s longtime confidants, Sidney Blumenthal.

The story is bound to revive suspicions about the FBI's role in trying to stifle the Trump presidency, an d further erode the bureau's already damaged credibility. As Arthur Schwartz put it, enough is enough:

Arthur Schwartz ✔ @ArthurSchwartz
Enough is enough. Time to clean house — starting with this traitor. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/politics/rod-rosenstein-wear-wire-25th-amendment.html …
2:14 PM - Sep 21, 2018



Rosenstein Suggested He Secretly Record Trump and Discussed 25th Amendment

In the turbulent days after the firing of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general appeared conflicted about his role and wanted to expose administration dysfunction, people around him said.
nytimes.com
653 293 people are talking about this

And if you still had any lingering doubts that the deep state doesn't exist...well...

Nick Short‏Verified account @PoliticalShort
Rosenstein suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House and he also discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump. But there’s no deep state right? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/politics/rod-rosenstein-wear-wire-25th-amendment.html …



11:21 AM - 21 Sep 2018

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...25th-amendment

Oh geez. He needs to be fired for many many reasons including this one.

Reports: Rosenstein Talked of “Wearing a Wire” Against Trump and “Invoking 25th Amendment”….


September 22, 2018 by sundance


A few days ago four democrat members of the intelligence oversight Gang-of-Eight demanded DNI Coats, DAG Rosenstein and FBI Director Wray block President Trump from his declassification directive. Primarily most of the language was directed toward Rod Rosenstein. [Reminder Here]


Today, some element within the Administrative State, likely Andrew McCabe or Robert Mueller, is reported as a source for a New York Times article claiming Rosenstein told officials in Andy McCabe’s office that he was willing to “wear a wire”, and solicit members of the Trump cabinet (Jeff Sessions, John Kelly) to invoke the 25th amendment.

…”Well, what do you want me to do, Andy, wear a wire?”…

Could it possibly be that elements within the deep state are targeting Rosenstein for his willingness to comply and debrief, President Trump on the matter of the declassification directive? Smells similar. Here’s the pertinent parts of the article:

[…] Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Mr. Rosenstein’s actions and comments.

None of Mr. Rosenstein’s proposals apparently came to fruition. It is not clear how determined he was about seeing them through, though he did tell Mr. McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security and now the White House chief of staff, to mount an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment.


The extreme suggestions show Mr. Rosenstein’s state of mind in the disorienting days that followed Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Sitting in on Mr. Trump’s interviews with prospective F.B.I. directors and facing attacks for his own role in Mr. Comey’s firing, Mr. Rosenstein had an up-close view of the tumult. Mr. Rosenstein appeared conflicted, regretful and emotional, according to people who spoke with him at the time.


Mr. Rosenstein disputed this account.


“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect,” he said in a statement. “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.”


A Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Mr. Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Mr. Rosenstein made it sarcastically.
But according to the others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other F.B.I. officials who were interviewing to be the bureau’s director could also secretly record Mr. Trump.


Mr. McCabe, who was later fired from the F.B.I., declined to comment. His memos have been turned over to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in the investigation into whether Trump associates conspired with Russia’s election interference, according to a lawyer for Mr. McCabe. “A set of those memos remained at the F.B.I. at the time of his departure in late January 2018,” the lawyer, Michael R. Bromwich, said of his client. “He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.” (read more)

NBC is reporting the context of the meeting was in Andrew McCabe’s office with Lisa Page and Scott Schools in attendance. [Rosenstein, McCabe, Page, Schools] Whereby McCabe made a written memo of the discussion:

(Via NBC) In a May, 16, 2017 meeting at a secure facility at the Justice Department — one week after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey — Rosenstein was arguing with Andrew McCabe, then the acting director of the FBI, about the president, according to a senior Justice Department official.


“Well, what do you want me to do, Andy, wear a wire?” Rosenstein asked at the meeting, which also included FBI lawyer Lisa Page and four career DOJ officials, according to the senior official. One of the career civil servants was Scott Schools, who would later go on to sign off on the firing of McCabe, the official said.
This official and a source who was in the room characterized Rosenstein’s remark as sarcastic.


The senior official further said that the reference to invoking the Constitution to remove Trump comes from a post-meeting memo written by McCabe that said the deputy attorney general “raises 25th amendment” and that Page’s notes from the same meeting do not contain any similar note. (read more)

….You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States…

(Tweets at Link)



https://theconservativetreehouse.com...5th-amendment/