President Trump on Friday vowed to get rid of the “stench” at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“Look what’s being exposed at the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Missouri. “You have some real bad ones. You see what’s happening at the FBI — they’re all gone, they’re all gone.”
{mosads}”But there’s a lingering stench and we’re going to get rid of that too,” Trump added.
His comments came only hours after The New York Times reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein proposed secretly recording conversations with Trump and discussed the possibility of administration officials invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.
Rosenstein, according to the Times, made such efforts after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in the spring of 2017.
The Times reported that Rosenstein tried to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House chief of staff John Kelly to help him invoke the 25th Amendment.
The amendment allows a majority vote by a president’s Cabinet to remove the president if they are deemed unfit for office.
Rosenstein has pushed back against the report, saying in a statement that the story was “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
The report prompted a political firestorm Friday afternoon, eliciting an immediate denial from the Justice Department and sparking calls from some in Trump’s base urging the president to fire his No. 2 law enforcement official.
A Justice Department spokeswoman provided a comment to the Times from an official who was said to be present when Rosenstein reportedly suggested wearing a wire. The unnamed person said Rosenstein’s remark was made sarcastically.
The report comes as Trump repeatedly criticizes those inside the FBI and the DOJ over what he feels is an unfair special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference.
Trump has often referred to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt.” In an interview earlier this week with Hill.TV, Trump said he doesn’t have an attorney general.