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WASHINGTON – Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump at the White House to denounce the chaos that the administration has been consuming, and he discussed the recruitment of cabinet members to invoke the 25th amendment. office to be unfit.
Mr. Rosenstein made these suggestions in the spring of 2017 when Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. the director plunged the White House into turmoil. In the days that followed, the president disclosed confidential information to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations revealed that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to commit to loyalty and to put end an investigation of a senior collaborator.
Mr. Rosenstein had only two weeks of work. He began overseeing the investigation of Russia and played a key role in the President's removal of Mr. Comey by writing a memo criticizing his handling of Hillary Clinton's email survey. But Mr Rosenstein was caught off guard when Mr Trump quoted the memo in the dismissal and he began telling people that he was afraid of being used.
Mr. Rosenstein made remarks about the secret registration of Mr. Trump and the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Departments and with F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. People were informed either about the events themselves or about notes written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then Acting Bureau Director, who documented the actions and comments of Mr. Rosenstein.
None of Mr. Rosenstein's proposals has apparently materialized. It is unclear how he was determined to see them, although he told McCabe that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then Secretary of Homeland Security and now leader of the White House. members of staff, to endeavor to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Extreme suggestions show Mr. Rosenstein's state of mind in the days of disorientation that followed Mr. Comey's removal. Sitting on Mr. Trump's talks with a possible F.B.I. directors and facing attacks for his own role in dismissing Mr. Comey, Mr. Rosenstein had a close-up view of the tumult. Mr. Rosenstein appeared in conflict, regrettable and moving, according to people who spoke to him at the time.
Mr. Rosenstein challenged this account.
"The New York Times story is inaccurate and factually incorrect," he said in a statement. "I will no longer comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are clearly biased against the department and pushing their agenda forward. But let me be clear about this: on the basis of my personal relationships with the president, there is no reason to invoke the 25th amendment.
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department also provided a statement from a person who was present when Mr. Rosenstein offered to wear a wire. The person, who was not named, acknowledged the remark but said that Rosenstein had done so sarcastically.
But according to others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea, but he also suggested that other F.B.I. Officials who spoke with the director of the office could also secretly record Mr. Trump.
Mr. McCabe, who was subsequently fired by the F.B.I, declined to comment. According to a McCabe lawyer, his memos were given to the special advocate, Robert S. Mueller III, as part of an investigation into whether Trump's associates had conspired with Russian electoral interference . "A series of these notes remained at the F.B.I. at the time of his departure end of January 2018, "said lawyer Michael R. Bromwich about his client. "He does not know how a member of the media got these notes."
The revelations about Mr. Rosenstein come as Mr. Trump has unleashed another round of attacks in recent days on federal security forces, claiming in an interview with The Hill newspaper that he hoped his attacks against the F.B.I. turned out to be "one of my accomplishments" and he only wanted him to end Mr. Comey earlier.
"If I had made a mistake with Comey, I should have kicked him before my arrival. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries, "said Mr. Trump. "I should have fired him right after the convention. Say, "I do not want this guy." Or at least dismissed him on the first day of his work. "
A few days after becoming the country's second law enforcement officer, Mr. Rosenstein was plunged into a crisis.
In the middle of May, Mr. Rosenstein and his boss, Mr. Sessions, who recused himself of the investigation into Russia because of his role as a big supporter of the Trump campaign, joined Mr. Trump at the Oval Office. . The president informed them of his plan to oust Mr. Comey. To the surprise of the White House assistants who were trying to talk to the president, Mr. Rosenstein accepted the idea, even proposing to write the note on the survey by email from Clinton. He made it shortly thereafter.
A day later, Trump announced the dismissal, and White House advisers released Rosenstein's note, calling it a basis for Mr. Comey's removal. The Democrats have strongly criticized Rosenstein, accusing him of helping to create a cover for the president to rationalize the dismissal.
"You wrote a memo that you knew would be used to perpetuate a lie," Senator Christopher Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, written on Twitter. "You have this debacle."
The president's confidence in his note surprised Mr. Rosenstein and he became angry with Mr. Trump, according to people who had spoken to Mr. Rosenstein at the time. He is worried that his reputation has suffered and wonders if Mr. Trump has any motives that go beyond Mr. Comey's treatment of Mrs. Clinton for expelling him, according to the people.
One Mr. Rosenstein began telling associates that he would ultimately be "justified" for his role in the case. One week after the dismissal, Mr. Rosenstein met with Mr. McCabe and at least four other senior officials from the Department of Justice, partly to explain his role in the situation.
During their discussion, Mr. Rosenstein expressed his frustration with how Mr. Trump conducted a search for a new F.B.I. Director, stating that the President did not take interviews with the candidates seriously. A handful of politicians and law enforcement officials, including Mr. McCabe, were on the study.
For Mr. Rosenstein, the hiring process was emblematic of a wider malfunction coming from the White House. According to two people familiar with the discussion, the process and the administration itself were in disarray.
Mr. Rosenstein then referred to the idea of wearing a recording device, or "wire", as he said, to secretly stick the president when he visited the White House. A participant asked if Mr. Rosenstein was serious and he responded with animation that he was there.
If it's not him, then Mr. McCabe or another F.B.I. The officials interviewing Mr. Trump for the job could perhaps carry a thread or register the chair, Rosenstein suggested. White House officials never checked his phone when he arrived for meetings there, Rosenstein added, hinting that it would be easy to secretly record Mr. Trump.
The suggestion itself was remarkable. While informants or undercover agents routinely use hidden listening devices to surreptitiously collect evidence for federal investigators, they usually target big drug names and mafia leaders in criminal investigations, and not a president considered ineffective.
In the end, the idea came to nothing, said the officials. But they called Mr Rosenstein's comments an example of how he behaved erratically while participating in interviews for a replacement F.B.I. director, considering the appointment of a special board and directing the daily operations of more than 100,000 people to the Ministry of Justice.
Mr. Rosenstein's suggestion regarding the 25th Amendment was also a sensitive subject. The amendment allows the vice-chair and the majority of cabinet representatives to declare that the president is "unable to fulfill the powers and duties of his office".
The mere fact of conducting a survey, even if Mr. Kelly and Mr. Sessions were on board, would be risky if another administration official came to tell the president, who could dismiss all the people involved to put an end to it. 'effort.
Mr. McCabe told other F.B.I. officials of his conversation with Mr. Rosenstein. None of the interviewees reported being aware of the consultation of Mr. Kelly or Mr. Sessions.
The episode is the first known instance of a senior official appointed responsible for the 25th amendment. Other unidentified people have talked about it, including a senior unnamed government official who wrote an editorial for the New York Times. The identity of this person is unknown to news reporters at the Times News Department.
Some of the details in Mr. McCabe's memos suggested that Mr. Rosenstein had some regrets about the dismissal of Mr. Comey. At a meeting with Mr. McCabe on May 12, Mr. Rosenstein was upset and moved, Mr. McCabe wrote that he hoped Mr. Comey would still be at F.B.I. so that he can bounce ideas on him.
Mr. Rosenstein also asked F.B.I. May 14, five days after the dismissal of Mr. Comey, about his appeal for advice on special advice. Officials responded that such an appeal was a bad idea because Mr. Comey was no longer in government. And they were surprised, convinced that the idea contradicted Mr. Rosenstein's stated reason for supporting Mr. Comey's dismissal, namely that he had exercised judgment in Clinton's email inquiry.
Mr. Rosenstein, 53, is a long-time public servant. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School, he worked for a federal judge before joining the Department of Justice in 1990 and was appointed US Attorney for Maryland.
Mr. Rosenstein also considered appointing three of the interviewees as special advocate James M. Cole, himself a former Deputy Attorney General. Mr. Cole would have made an even richer target for Mr. Trump's anger than Mr. Mueller, a Republican for life: Mr. Cole was # 2 at the Department of Justice for four years under the Obama administration and worked as a private lawyer. representing one of Mrs. Clinton's long-time confidants, Sidney Blumenthal.
Mr. Cole and Mr. Rosenstein have known each other for years. Mr. Cole, who declined to comment, was Mr. Rosenstein's supervisor early in his career at the Department of Justice when he was pursuing public corruption cases.
Mr. Trump and his allies repeatedly attacked Mr. Rosenstein and also targeted Mr. McCabe, who was fired in March for failing to be interviewed in an investigation by the Inspector General at the time. the removal of Mr. Comey. The Inspector General then seized federal prosecutors in Washington.
The president's allies seized Mr. McCabe's lack of candor to paint a damning picture of the F.B.I. under Mr Comey and claim that the investigation of Russia is tainted.
The Justice Department rejected at the end of July the request by Trump's congressional allies to release McCabe's memos, citing an ongoing investigation that lawmakers thought was Mr. Mueller's. Mr. Rosenstein not only oversees this investigation, but is also considered by the presidential attorneys as a witness to their defense because he requested the dismissal of Mr. Comey, who is being investigated as far as possible hinders justice.
Matt Apuzzo and Nicholas Fandos contributed to the report.
Follow Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt on Twitter: @adamgoldmanNYT and @nytmike.
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