A New York Times story that claims Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tried to convince FBI officials to wear a wire to secretly record President Trump, with the intention of using that audio to convince the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him is being called into question.
Rosenstein’s alleged remarks came during a meeting that included then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and now-former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, among others. He allegedly also “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,” The Times reported.
But according to NBC News, it is clear that Rosenstein was being sarcastic.
The New York Times offered various remembrances of the meeting, only once noting that one person had recorded the remarks as sarcastic. That detail does not figure prominently or equally in the Times reporting:
“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.”
The Washington Post, meanwhile, goes even further in calling the Times story into question, stating, “another person at the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, insisted the recording comment was said in a moment of sarcasm, and that the 25th amendment was not discussed.”
“That person said the wire comment came in response to McCabe’s own pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president. To that, Rosenstein responded with what this person described as a sarcastic comment along the lines of, “What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?”
Politico also reports the remark was sarcastic.
People close to Rosenstein said he likely made the comments described in the report in jest. One person who was in the room when Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire to record Trump said the remark was “sarcastic.”
“I remember this meeting and remember the wire comment. The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president,” the person said.
Former US Attorney Preet Bharara, who President Trump fired, weighs in:
Others have also questioned the thrust of the Times reporting: