President Donald Trump said that he has no plans to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had reportedly offered to resign last month on the heels of a report—which he denies—that accused him of discussing plans to secretly record the president.
Trump revealed his intentions regarding the No. 2 official at the Justice Department (DOJ) on Oct. 8, shortly before boarding Air Force One together with Rosenstein en route to Florida.
“I didn’t know Rod before, but I’ve gotten to know him, and I get along very well with him,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House.
The pair spoke for 45 minutes during the flight, after which a White House spokesperson confirmed that the president’s plans regarding Rosenstein haven’t changed.
Trump had planned to meet with Rosenstein earlier, but postponed the meeting to focus on the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Trump and Rosenstein walked off the plane side-by-side upon landing in Florida. The president said his conversation with Rosenstein went “great.”
White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and acting Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed O’Callaghan were both included in the meeting between Trump and Rosenstein, according to White House spokesman Hogan Gidley.
“They discussed various topics, including the International Chiefs of Police event later today, support for our great law enforcement officials, border security, how to better address violent crime in Chicago, and general DOJ business,” Gidley said.
Trump joked about the media’s attention on the topic during his speech at the Chiefs of Police Convention shortly after, with Rosenstein in attendance.
“The press wants to know ‘What did you talk about?’ We had a very good talk, I will say. That became a very big story, actually, folks. We had a good talk,” Trump said.
In a New York Times article last month that Rosenstein dismissed as “inaccurate and factually incorrect,” the newspaper reported—citing anonymous sources —that Rosenstein suggested he would wear a “wire” to secretly record Trump and discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove Trump.
Days later, several news outlets reported that Rosenstein had offered to resign from his post, but neither the White House nor the DOJ confirmed the reports. The White House issued a statement hours later saying that Trump and Rosenstein would meet about “recent news stories.”
That meeting was pushed back, first because of Trump’s busy schedule at the U.N. General Assembly in New York and then again because of the Kavanaugh confirmation.
“I don’t know of any time in the history of this country where you had people who are at the top levels of government conspiring to secretly record a president.”
The Times cited leaked memos taken by then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
The list of documents in the Sessions subpoena also includes key documents related to the Russia investigation, including interviews conducted in relation to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.
It is unclear why Goodlatte issued the subpoena to Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia investigation.
Spokespeople for Goodlatte and the DOJ didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
Goodlatte also invited Rosenstein to meet with the committee privately.
Rosenstein oversees the Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. The New York Times published the Rosenstein story hours after Trump announced that he would forward a trove of unredacted documents related to the Russia investigation to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The president’s initial plan was to declassify the documents and release them to the public. He later changed course saying that the release could “have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe” and that “key allies” had called on him not to release the files.
