Vice President Mike Pence's statements that a top Justice Department official was the driving force behind firing of FBI Director James Comey is contradicted by White House officials who say President Trump set the plan in motion.

Pence spoke at some length about the Comey firing Wednesday, stopping to address reporters on the second floor of the Capitol, where he rejected the Russia investigation as a motive for the firing and put the impetus in the lap of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.

'That was not what this was about,' Pence said. 'The president took strong and decisive leadership here to put the safety and security of the American people first,' Pence said.

Pence called the recently-confirmed Rosenstein a man of 'great character' and integrity. Pence said Rosenstein 'came to work, sat down and made the recommendation for the FBI to be able to do its job that it would need new leadership.'

Vice President Mike Pence told reporters on Wednesday that the deputy attorney general ''came to work, sat down and made the recommendation' for new leadership at the FBI

'The deputy attorney general provides the oversight to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,' Pence continued. 'The deputy attorney general was confirmed just a few short weeks ago by the United States Senate when he brought the recommendation to the president that the director of the FBI should be removed,' he added.

Within a few hours, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders put the instigation of the firing at the first days of the Trump administration.

She said Trump had 'been considering letting Director Comey go pretty much from the day he took office.'

'The president had lost confidence in Director Comey,' she said. 'And frankly he'd been considering letting Director Comey go since the day he was elected. But he did have a conversation with the deputy attorney general on Monday where they had come to him to express their concerns. The president asked they put those concerns and their recommendation in writing, which is the letter you guys have received.'

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders got grilled by reporters about the Comey firing on Wednesday

Pence spoke about the Pence firing on Wednesday from the Capitol

She was referencing a detailed memo from Rosenstein that was released by the White House. The memo laid out the case for Comey's bad conduct, including with his press conference announcing the decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton, even while childing her for extreme carelessness with her email.

'Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions,' Rosenstein wrote, 'but we never release it gratuitously.'

The Washington Post reported that Rosenstein threatened to quit after being cast as the prime mover behind Comey's firing.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California says President Trump told her he had asked Rosenstein to 'look into' the matter

'When I talked to the president last night, he said: 'The department's a mess, I asked Rosenstein and [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions to look into it. Rosenstein sent me a memo. I accepted the recommendation to fire him,'' Feinstein recalled, ABC News reported.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein penned a detailed memo cataloguing Comey's lapses that the White House released when it announced Comey's firing

On Tuesday evening, press secretary Spicer told reporters about the firing: 'That was a DOJ decision.'

Asked about the report Rosenstein threatened to resign, Sanders told CBS 'This Morning' on Wednesday, 'I'm not aware of any conversation that took place about that. what i do know is this is an action the president took and wanted to take and had been considering taking since November.'

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California blasted Pence for another aspect of his comments, when he said out of hand that the firing didn't have to do with the Russia investigation.

'For the Vice President of the United States, who ... came into Congress with and I like personally, to abase himself this way is a terrible thing to watch,' Schiff told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell.

He's back: James Comey was at home and apparently smiling as he was seen at his home in McLean, Virginia. He is being invited to testify to Congress on Tuesday

'What I found so striking about that clip, Andrea, is he was asked, did the president fire Comey to interfere with the Russia investigation? Well, if he believed that the simple answer was no, but that wasn't his immediate answer, you could see him thinking about the question. And I think what may be going through the vice president's head is, do I want to commit myself to something when I don't fully know the facts of why the director was fired?'

Asked if he is suggesting the vice president is lying: 'I'm suggesting the vice president may not know the full details. That, I think, is the best explanation for the vice president's comments, that he simply doesn't know what went into the decision to fire Director Comey. He was apparently unwitting when Michael Flynn represented certain things to him that weren't true. And he may not know whether this was the Justice Department making a recommendation on its own to the president or the president telling the Justice Department, give me reasons to fire this guy.'