Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested Sunday that administration officials should find “something else to do” if they do not support President Trump’s agenda.
“I’ve been pretty clear since my beginning of service here in this administration,” Pompeo told “Fox News Sunday” when asked about a report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein proposed secretly recording conversations with Trump and discussed the possibility of removing him.
{mosads}”If you can’t be on the team, if you’re not supporting this mission, maybe you’ve got something else to do.”
Pompeo added that he’s carried this message to junior and senior colleagues of his in the State Department, CIA and FBI, saying that the Trump administration needs everyone “engaged” in the president’s mission.
“If you’re not, you should take this time to do something more productive,” he said.
His comments come just days after The New York Times reported that Rosenstein proposed secretly recording conversations with the president and discussed the possibility of administration officials invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
According to the report, Rosenstein made these efforts after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in the spring of 2017.
The Times reported that Rosenstein, among other things, attempted to recruit Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House chief of staff John Kelly to help him invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows a majority vote by a president’s Cabinet to remove him if he is deemed unfit for office.
Rosenstein issued two statements refuting the reporting, saying it is “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
He later said in a statement that he “never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false.”
But New York Times Deputy Managing Editor Matt Purdy stood by the reporting in response on Saturday.
“Just because you don’t like the facts, don’t comfort yourself by dismissing the story as fake or credulous reporting,” Purdy wrote in a statement. “The [Department of Justice] claim that Rosenstein was sarcastic when he suggested he wear a wire on Trump is not supported by our reporting or others.”
Trump has yet to directly weigh in on the matter regarding Rosenstein. But he said during a rally in Missouri on Friday night that he’s prepared to get rid of the “lingering stench” at the Department of Justice and the FBI.