Rosenstein proposed secretly recording Trump, reportedly discussed invoking 25th Amendment
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the steward of the special counsel investigation into Russian election interference, proposed wearing a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump last year in order to capture the chaos of his administration and ineptitude of his presidency, a person with knowledge of the matter said Friday.
However, the person — whose identity is known to The New York Daily News but spoke on condition of anonymity — said Rosenstein made the proposal facetiously in a meeting with law enforcement officials shortly after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
“I remember this meeting and remember the wire comment,” the source said. “The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president.”
But several people who read memos about the meeting written by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe disputed that assessment.
The sources told The New York Times that Rosenstein raised the possibility of wearing a wire in the context of recruiting Cabinet officials to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office on the grounds that he’s mentally unfit to serve. Rosenstein was serious enough about the idea to propose that FBI officials who were interviewing to succeed Comey should wear wires while meeting with Trump, according to the sources.
At the time, Trump had made a number of questionable moves that raised eyebrows in the law enforcement community, including disclosing classified U.S. intelligence to Russian government officials during a meeting in the Oval Office.
Rosenstein, who was just two weeks into his new job in overseeing the Russia investigation, was concerned by Trump’s behavior and revelations that he had asked Comey, before firing him, to pledge fealty and end an investigation into his national security adviser Michael Flynn, the sources said.
Rosenstein’s drastic discussions evidently didn’t materialize, but the sources said he told associates at the time that he may be able to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly on board with invoking the 25th Amendment.
Rosenstein, 53, vehemently denied the Times report, blasting it as “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,” Rosenstein said in a statement. “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 White House spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.
McCabe, who was fired earlier this year over allegedly misleading internal Justice Department investigators, didn’t dispute the notion that his memos contain information about Rosenstein’s alleged 25th Amendment musings.
“Andrew McCabe 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,” said Michael Bromwich, an attorney for McCabe.
Bromwich said McCabe handed over all those memos to special counsel Robert Mueller when he sat down with his investigators last year.
“A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018,” Bromwich said. “He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.”
Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor in Illinois, wasn’t fazed by the suggestion that senior Justice Department officials were discussing drastic measures in the wake of Comey’s axing.
“It was a unique moment,” Cramer said. “”It was a very tense time. It could have been in the vein of (Rosenstein) and others venting, for lack of a better term.”