The extraordinary allegations,
depicting a panic-stricken No. 2 official at the Justice Department who
has been a target of the President in the past, immediately
raised questions about Rosenstein's future and how Trump would react.
The revelations prompted Rosenstein to take the remarkable step of
denying the report in two separate statements.
The story was first reported by The New York Times.
CNN
has not reviewed the McCabe memos, but they have been turned over to
special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources familiar with the
matter. Rosenstein oversees Mueller's investigation into possible links
between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and recently
secured the cooperation of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Rosenstein issued two rare
statements himself forcefully denying the Times' report -- the broad
strokes of which were eventually widely reported by other outlets.
"The
New York Times's story is inaccurate and 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."
While
none of Rosenstein's proposals came to fruition, according to the Times
report, the remarkable details of the memos -- whether a wholly
accurate reflection of all that transpired or not -- could further
imperil Rosenstein's delicate standing in Trump's eyes.
Two
sources familiar with the matter say Rosenstein was at the White House
Friday evening for about a half hour, where he consulted with top aides
and told to issue a firmer denial. The sources would not specify who the
aides were.
Later he issued a
second statement: "I never pursued or authorized recording the President
and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the
President is absolutely false."
The
President sought advice on whether he should fire Rosenstein, and some
of those in his orbit tried to sway him not to make any decision Friday
night, The Washington Post reported. During those discussions, the President relayed that he did not trust Rosenstein or McCabe, according to the Post.
'Lingering stench' at Justice Department, Trump says
Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, the top official at the department, was "upset"
and "concerned" upon reading the Times story, according to a source
close to him. After the story broke, former Justice Department officials
went into damage control mode trying to dismiss McCabe's recollection
of his interactions with Rosenstein.
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.
Amid
rampant speculation over the source of the Times story, a
representative for McCabe said no one associated with him shared info on
his memos with media. Melissa Schwartz tweeted,
"Let me be 100% clear: no one associated with Andrew McCabe or his team
shared, read, described, whispered or blinked in Morse Code any part of
his memos with any reporter."
As of late Friday evening, the White House had still not commented on the story, but Trump told a rally in Missouri, "there's a lingering stench" at the FBI and Justice Department and promised ominously, "we're going to get rid of that, too."
The President's son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted the Times story and said: "No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realDonaldTrump."
Congressional fight begins
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned the White House not to use the story to try to fire Rosenstein.
"This
story must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing
Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order install an official who will
allow the president to interfere with the Special Counsel's
investigation," Schumer said in a statement. "Generals Kelly, Mattis and
numerous other White House and cabinet officials have been reported to
say critical things of the president without being fired."
Rosenstein
has been a frequent target of the President, who has called the special
counsel's investigation a witch hunt and a hoax, and House Republicans
have threatened to hold the deputy attorney general in contempt or to
even impeach him.
Two of
Rosenstein's most vocal critics in the House, Republican Reps. Jim
Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, called for McCabe's
memos to be released via Twitter.
Jordan,
who along with Meadows has introduced articles of impeachment against
Rosenstein, declined to weigh in on whether Rosenstein's discussions
about a wearing a wire and the 25th Amendment were grounds for Trump to
fire him, saying that was a decision for the President.
But
Jordan told CNN in an interview Friday that it underscored the fact
that Congress should be given a copy of the McCabe memos, which he says
Republicans were denied when they sought them in July. "Mr. Rosenstein
says he didn't say what The New York Times is writing about. Let us see
all the information and we can all judge for ourselves," Jordan said.
In April, CNN reported
Trump considered firing Rosenstein in the aftermath of the FBI's raid
on the President's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Trump also
suggested he might remove Rosenstein in February after Rosenstein was
named in the House Republican memo alleging abuses of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. When asked by reporters in the Oval
Office if he was considering firing Rosenstein, Trump said: "You figure
that one out."
Yet Trump has also
repeatedly painted McCabe as a serial liar. In April, after the Justice
Department inspector general released a report damaging to McCabe, Trump
promoted the report on Twitter and said it was a "total disaster" for
McCabe. Trump added, "He LIED! LIED! LIED!"
Sessions
fired McCabe in March over accusations that he had approved other FBI
officials speaking with the media about an ongoing investigation into
the Clinton Foundation and had misled investigators about his actions.
McCabe
has fiercely disputed the findings of the Justice Department's
inspector general, but he is still under criminal investigation by the
US Attorney's Office in DC.
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