Response to your reporting. He said, quote, the New York Times story is factually incorrect. I will not respond on a story thats biased against the department and advancing their own personal agenda but let me be clear about this. Based on my personal dealings with the president , there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. I want to give you a chance to respond to that. I also want to point out when he says there is no basis, hes talking the present tense. Hes not saying, i never thought there was a basis. Yeah. That was my read. I mean im not going to parse rods statement. I think, myself and other news outlets have all now, including cnn, have recorded the basic facts that are now in dispute. The two basic facts are rod raised the idea of wearing a wire and in a second basic fact, in a memo Andrew Mccabe road that Special Counsel has rod raced the idea of the 25th
release of the transcripts of the witnesses in the russian investigation. The republicans refused. Mr. Nunes refused
in two meeting with senior doj officials andse offered to weara wire to record the president backde in may of 2017. now the justice department issued ade statement which read this, the deputy ag never authorized any recording that mr. mccabe references. in an interview yesterday mccabe pushed back. while the deputy attorney general says he never authorized anyone to wear a wire, that is true. he never authorized it because we never asked him for that authorization. meaning his semiing didn t he had dial of the story is not actually a denial. of course, president trump tweeted about the former doj officials all day long yesterday. in the morning heng accused mcce andac rosenstein ever planning very illegal act.eg also describing it as treasonous. late last night he threw fired fbi director james comey into the mix.
we think about james comey not informing the attorney general about what he was doing. so i think that s the tension you see here. on the one hand, it s a big deal. you are going to be doing it when these consequences come up. jeffrey, andrew mccabe said that it was no joke when conversations came up about removing the president of the united states through the 25th amendment to the constitution or having rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general of the united states, wear a wire to go into the oval office and tape the president. what do you make of that? you know, we have heard the than a year. i think just by sheer repetition, we have become inyou are in innured how serious this is. the fact the leadership of the fbi thought the president was so compromised by russia, his own cabinet might have to force him out of office.
second special counsel, and even warned the president of a set up. all in reaction to a new york times report that deputy attorney general rod rosenstein discussed wearing a wire to secretly record conversations with president trump and discuss invoking the 25th amendment to oust him in the days after the fbi director james comey was fired in may of 2017. the times report is partly based off memos written by fbi officials including then deputy director andrew mccabe who declined to comment but denied being a source. yesterday house judiciary committee chairman bob goodlatte set a deadline for them to turn over the documents. matt, i want to start with you to set up our questions for senator blumenthal.
talk about the report about rod rosenstein discussing and using the words 25th amendment. is the story that rod rosenstein potentially said that, or is it broader? what s your gut? you know, the way i read the story it really is a sign of the turmoil that was going on in the department in those eight days after james comey was fiertd re before robert mueller was appointed. it s hard to imagine a deputy attorney general who kind of is in complete command of the situation suggesting seriously that he wear a wire, that andy mccabe or somebody else go into the oval office wear a wire or instroke 25th amendment when he s not a member of the cabinet. the deputy attorney general wouldn t have a role in that situation. a lot of people interpreted that to mean he wasn t being serious. doj tried hard the to imply and put out statements he wasn t being certificate. the more accurate read of this