Thread by @Monaheart1229

Whomever it was in the FBI or DOJ who leaked this info appears to want Rosenstein fired and the Mueller investigation stopped. This article, while credible, has deeply disturbing timing. It just reeks of Trump et al... #FridayFeeling #25thAmendment
nyti.ms/2xxNdwl

2/"Mr. Rosenstein 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. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

3/"The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Mr. Rosenstein’s actions and comments."

4/"Mr. Rosenstein disputed this account.

“The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect,” he said in a statement. “I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own

5/"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.”

6/"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."

7/"But according to the others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other F.B.I. officials who were interviewing to be the bureau’s director could also secretly record Mr. Trump."

8/"The revelations about Mr. Rosenstein come as Mr. Trump has unleashed another round of attacks in recent days on federal law enforcement, saying in an interview with the newspaper The Hill that he hopes his assaults on the F.B.I. turn out to be “one of my crowning achievements"

9/"” and that he only wished he had terminated Mr. Comey sooner. “If I did one mistake with Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him the day I won the primaries,” Mr. Trump said. “I should have fired him right after the convention.

10/"Say, ‘I don’t want that guy.’ Or at least fired him the first day on the job.” Mr. Rosenstein expressed frustration at how Mr. Trump had conducted the search for a new F.B.I. director, saying the president was failing to take the candidate interviews seriously.

11/"A handful of politicians and law enforcement officials, including Mr. McCabe, were under consideration. To Mr. Rosenstein, the hiring process was emblematic of broader dysfunction stemming from the White House. He said both the process and the administration itself were in

12/"disarray, according to two people familiar with the discussion. Mr. Rosenstein then raised the idea of wearing a recording device, or “wire,” as he put it, to secretly tape the president when he visited the White House. One participant asked whether

13/"Mr. Rosenstein was serious, and he replied animatedly that he was. The episode is the first known instance of a named senior administration official weighing the 25th Amendment. Unidentified others have been said to discuss it, including an unnamed senior administration

14/"official who wrote an Op-Ed for The New York Times. That person’s identity is unknown to journalists in the Times news department. The president’s allies have seized on Mr. McCabe’s lack of candor to paint a damning picture of the F.B.I. under Mr. Comey and assert that the

15/"Russia investigation is tainted. The Justice Department denied a request in late July from Mr. Trump’s congressional allies to release Mr. McCabe’s memos, citing a continuing investigation that the lawmakers believed to be Mr. Mueller’s. Mr. Rosenstein not only supervises

16/"that investigation but is also considered by the president’s lawyers as a witness for their defense because he sought the dismissal of Mr. Comey, which is being investigated as possible obstruction of justice." ~excerpts, NYT, 9/21/18