[SARA] Former FBI General Counsel James Baker told lawmakers last week that based on conversations with senior FBI officials, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was "seriously" considering secretly recording President Trump’s conversations. Rosenstein also discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment on the president in an effort to remove him from office for being unfit. This, according to sources with direct knowledge of Baker’s deposition.Baker said he met with former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former FBI attorney Lisa Page shortly after their meeting with Rosenstein in May, 2017. He told lawmakers that McCabe, Page and Rosenstein had discussed the possibility of secretly recording President Trump. Baker, who was the top lawyer for the FBI and a close confidant of Comey, noted that he was not in the meeting with Rosenstein. A source with direct knowledge of the testimony claims Baker testified that "Andy McCabe, Lisa Page took seriously what Rosenstein had said, and when they returned to the office, the three of them discussed the possibility of secretly recording Trump."
Baker told lawmakers during his deposition last Wednesday, that he told Page and McCabe that "he didn’t think it was unethical’ to secretly record the president.
"He interpreted what McCabe and Page had said as serious," another source with direct knowledge of Baker’s deposition said. "Baker also added that he ’didn’t do a legal analysis on...the issue of ’ bugging the president.'"
Baker’s testimony to lawmakers coincides with a New York Times story published in September that suggested Rosenstein was behind a move in May, 2017 to remove the president after he ordered the firing of former FBI Director James Comey. The irony, however, was that on May 9, 2017, Rosenstein had written the letter outlining the reasons Comey was unfit to serve as FBI director stating, "The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement." The letter continues, "The Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation."