President Trump said he may ask Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to delay their Thursday meeting so he can watch his Supreme Court nominee testify in the Senate.
The two are slated to meet and talk about a New York Times report that said Rosenstein considered secretly recording Trump and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Rosenstein, the Justice Department’s No. 2, has dismissed all allegations in the story, and the two men were set to talk Thursday about the reports, but Trump said he might delay that.
“I’m talking to him. We’ve had a good talk. He said he never said it. He said he doesn’t believe it. He said he has a lot of respect for me. He was very nice, and we’ll see,” Trump said during a press conference at the United Nationals General Assembly on Wednesday night.
Trump added that he might ask Rosenstein for a “little bit of a delay” so he can focus on the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Ford, who has accused the judge of sexual assault.
When asked if he is planning to fire Rosenstein, Trump said he hoped Rosenstein could stay.
“I certainly would prefer not doing that,” the president said. “My preference is to keep him.”
Rosenstein oversees special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign officials, and his removal as acting attorney general could shake up the investigation.
Trump has dismissed the probe as “a witch hunt.”
