The short version is: The reports were true. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein really did discuss wearing a wire to secretly record the president. Rosenstein and others did discuss invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office. And the FBI did adopt an aggressive new investigation strategy, targeting the president himself, almost instantly after the Comey firing. It's all true, that is, if revelations in an upcoming book by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe are accurate.
Could his words be more accurate than Comey's?
To promote his book, McCabe has done an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes." Correspondent Scott Pelley appeared on CBS Thursday morning with a preview. "There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment," Pelley said. "These were the eight days from Comey's firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president."
Deep State? Don't be silly!
And then there were the talks about secretly recording the president and using the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. According to CBS, top law enforcement officials were discussing which Cabinet members might be persuaded to go along with an effort to remove Trump. "They were counting noses," Pelley said on CBS Thursday morning. "They were not asking Cabinet members whether they would vote for or against removing the president, but they were speculating."CBS is/will report this? What's their angle?
Much, if not all, of what McCabe reports has been reported before. But an eyewitness, insider account lends new weight to the idea that the highest levels of the national security apparatus experienced a collective freakout in the days after the Comey firing.
In particular, it intensifies questions about Rosenstein's behavior in those eight days. Remember that Rosenstein played a key role in the removal of Comey. A few days later, he was talking about removing the president for having removed Comey.
"The guy who wrote the memo providing the justification for firing Comey is then upset that the swamp is mad at him for helping fire Comey and then comes up with a plan to wear a wire and invoke the 25th Amendment," said the House Republican.
The Swamp, as opposed to The Deep State. I got it now!
After the CBS report, the Justice Department, on Rosenstein's behalf, issued a statement saying McCabe's account was "inaccurate and factually incorrect." Rosenstein, the Department said, "never authorized any recording that Mc. McCabe references." That was not exactly a denial of the basic story that Rosenstein discussed wearing a wire.
No, never 'authorized' it, he just tried to find somebody who would do it.