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(WASHINGTON) — Sources familiar with the memos of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe tell ABC News that, according to those memos, during a conversation in May 2017 between McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Rosenstein suggested that McCabe or others wear a wire when speaking with President Donald Trump.
Additionally, sources tell ABC News according to the memos – Rosenstein told McCabe he could recruit members of the president’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office for being unfit. Rosenstein believed he would be able to convince Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to sign on, according to the sources.
One source who was in the meeting confirmed that Rosenstein did make a remark about recording Trump with the use of a wire. But the source insists: “The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president.”
The news was first reported by the New York Times.
Rosenstein pushed back on the New York Times’ report.
“The New York Times’ 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. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25thAmendment.”
In response to the story, McCabe’s attorney’s issued the following statement to ABC News: “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. 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.”
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