Rod Rosenstein

WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein floated the idea of secretly recording President Donald Trump last year amid law enforcement concerns about chaos in the White House, according to people familiar with exchanges at the time. But one person who was present said Rosenstein was just being sarcastic.

The comments were first reported by The New York Times, which also said that Rosenstein raised the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump as unfit for office. The report, which Rosenstein denied, creates even greater uncertainty for him in his position at a time when Trump has lambasted Justice Department leadership and publicly humiliated both him and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The reported conversation took place during a tense May 2017 meeting involving acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, another frequent target of Trump’s wrath. McCabe was temporarily elevated after Director James Comey was fired, but was himself fired this year. McCabe documented conversations with senior officials, including Trump, in a series of memos that have since been provided to special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his Russia investigation.

The interactions lay bare the conflicts within the FBI and Justice Department early in the Trump administration after Rosenstein, just weeks into his job, wrote a memo about Comey that the White House used as justification for firing the FBI director.

In a statement, Rosenstein called the Times story “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 25th Amendment.”

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution spells out that a president can be declared “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” upon a majority vote of the vice president and the Cabinet.

One of the people briefed on the conversation in question said it occurred during a moment of frustration between McCabe and Rosenstein. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the conversation.

Rosenstein was rankled by the revelation that Comey had kept memos about his interactions with the president, while McCabe wanted a more aggressive approach toward the White House, the person said.

At that point, Rosenstein said to McCabe something to the effect of, “What do you want, you want me to wear a wire?” according to the person. Rosenstein was then asked in the meeting if he was serious, and he said yes, but he thought the question he was responding to referred to something else and he did not mean for the wire comment to be taken seriously, the person said.

McCabe’s lawyer, Michael Bromwich, said in a statement that his client had 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.” The statement did not address the content of the memos.