--- title: Rod Rosenstein Story Gives Trump Cover to Fire Deputy AG description: A report that Rosenstein suggested recording Trump and invoking the Constitution's 25th Amendment has renewed calls for Rosenstein's head. canonical: https://time.com/5403501/trump-rosenstein/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-21T22:07:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T11:44:55.467Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Has Wanted to Fire Rosenstein for Months. Has He Just Been Given a Reason? og:description: The deputy attorney general reportedly suggested secretly recording the President og:url: https://time.com/5403501/trump-rosenstein/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1d8271bdb509ba12/69893ae8db2987705d260c3b/rod-rosenstein.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5031 og:image:height: 2830 og:image:alt: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Has Wanted to Fire Rosenstein for Months. Has He Just Been Given a Reason? twitter:description: The deputy attorney general reportedly suggested secretly recording the President twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1d8271bdb509ba12/69893ae8db2987705d260c3b/rod-rosenstein.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Has Wanted to Fire Rosenstein for Months. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Sep 21, 2018 10:07 PM UTC  Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testifies during a Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the Justice Department's proposed FY18 budget on Capitol Hill on June 13, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testifies during a Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the Justice Department's proposed FY18 budget on Capitol Hill on June 13, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Zach Gibson—Getty Images  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is the senior White House correspondent at TIME. Sep 21, 2018 10:07 PM UTC Cool-headed lawyers and advisors around President Donald Trump have advised him for months that firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation and hired Robert Mueller to lead it, would unnecessarily provoke the special counsel and unleash a political firestorm. But a report Friday that Rosenstein suggested recording Trump and invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office has roiled the White House and renewed calls for Rosenstein’s head from Trump’s kitchen cabinet of conservative pundits. > [](https://twitter.com/judgejeanine/status/1043218068560859136) > [](https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/1043210321312325632) The descriptions of Rosenstein’s comments, [first reported by The New York _Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/politics/rod-rosenstein-wear-wire-25th-amendment.html), could give Trump political cover to fire Rosenstein from his post as No. 2 in the Department of Justice. Doing so would also take him out of his role overseeing Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Trump’s role in Russian meddling in the election. According to a statement provided by a Justice Department official, one person who was in the room when Rosenstein talked about wearing a “wire” to record the President described the comment as “sarcastic” and said Rosenstein never had an intention to record a conversation with the President. Rosenstein’s comments came in the weeks following Trump’s May 7 decision to fire FBI director James Comey. In a statement, Rosenstein said the _Times_ story is “inaccurate and factually incorrect” and added that based on his “personal dealings” with President Trump, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment. White House officials, who found the report “very troubling,” are trying sort out exactly what Rosenstein may have said, said Eric Bolling, a friend of Trump who is in touch with White House officials and hosts a show on the conservative digital broadcast channel CRTV. “I think it opens the door for a possible firing of Rosenstein,” Bolling said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5403501/trump-rosenstein/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5403501/trump-rosenstein/"},"headline":"Trump Has Wanted to Fire Rosenstein for Months. 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