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After the New York Timesreported on Friday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested last year that he secretly record President Donald Trump "to expose the chaos" engulfing the White House and discussed "recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment," Public Citizen issued an urgent reminder that over 400,000 Americans in nearly 1,000 cities nationwide are ready to take to the streets if Trump uses the report as a pretext to fire Rosenstein.
According to the Times, "Rosenstein made these suggestions in the spring of 2017 when Mr. Trump's firing of James B. Comey as FBI director plunged the White House into turmoil. Over the ensuing days, the president divulged classified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office, and revelations emerged that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide."
"Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job," the Times noted. "He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the president's dismissal of Mr. Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Mr. Rosenstein was caught off guard when Mr. Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used."
Rosenstein immediately refuted the accuracy of the Times' report.
"The New York Times' story is inaccurate and factually incorrect," Rosenstein said in an on-the-record 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 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."
Just after the Times report broke, some journalists and analysts immediately began speculating that White House officials leaked the information to the Times in order to provoke Trump to fire Rosenstein.
