‘Illegal and treasonous’: Trump says Rosenstein was part of a ‘coup attempt’

President Donald Trump on Monday hurled sharp criticism at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, accusing him of engaging in “illegal and treasonous” activity.

The president trained his ire on Rosenstein — a member of his own administration — and two bygone officials from the Trump Justice Department, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in a pair of morning tweets.

“Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod J. Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught,” Trump wrote. “This was the illegal and treasonous ‘insurance policy’ in full action!”

Trump was apparently referring to comments McCabe has made recently, amid a media blitz ahead of the release of his book about working in Trump’s administration. McCabe told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that he and Rosenstein discussed removing Trump from office through the 25th Amendment, and the possibility of Rosenstein wearing a wire to “collect evidence” about the president’s motivation for firing former FBI Director James Comey.

“To be fair, it was an unbelievably stressful time,” McCabe said in the interview. “I can’t even describe for you how many things must have been coursing through the deputy attorney general’s mind at that point. So it was really something that he kinda threw out in a very frenzied chaotic conversation about where we were and what we needed to do next.”

Rosenstein has disputed this allegation, which The Washington Post has previously reported. The Justice Department also issued a carefully parsed response to the “60 Minutes” interview, writing that Rosenstein “never authorized” any recording of the president and that he wasn’t “in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment.”