Justice Department officials are scrambling to deny a report suggesting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein floated the idea of removing Donald Trump from office.
In an interview with Politico, a DOJ official who was in the room when Rosenstein made a comment about wearing a wire when meeting with Trump said the deputy attorney general was being "sarcastic."
"I remember this meeting and remember the wire comment," the official said. "The statement was sarcastic and was never discussed with any intention of recording a conversation with the president."
A former Justice Department official close to the deputy attorney general told Politico that the main thrust of the article — that Rosenstein lobbied cabinet members about potentially invoking the 25th Amendment — doesn't "add up."
According to the official, Rosenstein would have recognized that the "math" of the 25th Amendment would not have worked given that it requires "a majority of the cabinet, the vice president and majorities in Congress" to remove the president from office.