US deputy attorney general spoke of taping, ousting Trump, says report
MORE TIME FOR KAVANAUGH ACCUSER
The US official who oversees the federal investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 US election suggested secretly recording President Donald Trump last year and recruiting Cabinet members to invoke a constitutional amendment to remove him from the White House, the New York Times has reported.
Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein made the suggestions in the spring of 2017 after Trump fired FBI director James Comey, NYT reported on Friday, citing its sources as people who were briefed on the events themselves or on memos written by FBI officials including Andrew McCabe, who became acting director when Comey was dismissed.
The proposals did not come to fruition, the Times said. The Washington Post also reported the discussions, citing memos written by McCabe.
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McCabe has no knowledge of how the memos were made available, said his lawyer Michael Bromwich. Rosenstein denied the Times story as “inaccurate and factually incorrect” in a statement that also blamed anonymous sources promoting personal agendas.
The White House did not immediately react to the reports, and Trump did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about whether he would fire Rosenstein as he arrived in Springfield, Missouri, for a rally.
Later he alluded to his quarrels with personnel at the justice department, telling a packed rally for Republican US Senate candidate Josh Hawley, “Just look at what is being exposed in our justice department.”
“We have great people in the Department of Justice . ... But you’ve got some real bad ones.”
The woman whose sexual assault allegation threatens to bring down Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee was given more time to decide on testifying in the Senate. Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh carried out a violent sexual assault against her when he was 17 and she was 15, insists she is ready to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But she rejected a Friday evening deadline imposed by the committee’s Republican leader, Chuck Grassley, to agree to his terms for the hearing. AGENCIES
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