A New York Times reporter has responded to Rod Rosenstein's claims that he was joking when he said he wanted to wear a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump, saying: 'This wasn't a flippant remark.'

A New York Times report Friday claimed the Deputy Attorney General had discussed the possibility of recruiting members of Trump's Cabinet to declare him unfit for the job with other Justice and FBI sources.

Rosenstein and several Justice Department officials have said the comment was made as a joke, and that the AG does not actually believe Trump should be removed from office via the Constitution's 25th Amendment.

However, New York Times journalist Adam Goldman defended his reporting, telling CNN's Jake Tapper Friday: '[Rosenstein] was, in fact, very serious. And the circumstances in which it was described to me are different now than what's being put out I guess by the government.'

New York Times journalist Adam Goldman (left) has defended his research in Friday's bombshell report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (right) said he wanted to wear a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump during a May 2017 meeting

Rosenstein (right) reportedly talked with FBI officials, including then-acting director Andrew McCabe, about wearing a wire to secretly record Trump in order to build a case for removing him from office in May of last year

Goldman went on: 'But, you know, it's important that your listeners understand something. That as I was pursuing this story for a very long time, people were reluctant to talk about it, because of the gravity of the story.

'There was concern that if it got out, that, you know, Rosenstein had wanted to actually, you know, wear a wire, and suggested Andy McCabe, the acting director at the time wear a wire, that Rob might get fired. People were sincerely concerned about this. Not because he made a flip remark. Because of the seriousness surrounding the remark.'

Rosenstein disputed the New York Times account on Friday, and a Justice Department official who was reportedly in the room when Rosenstein talked about using the 25th Amendment to end the Trump presidency says he was being sarcastic.

That account agrees with a Fox News report based on sources who were in the room and said the meeting took place May 16, 2017.

The Washington Post, too, cited a source who said Rosenstein's comment was biting but unserious.

The 25th Amendment allows for a majority of the president's cabinet, or 'such other body as Congress may by law provide,' to decide if an Oval Office occupant is unable to carry out his duties – and then to put it to a full congressional vote.

Reports emerged Friday that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe (pictured) was in the room when Rosenstein uncorked his idea, and an Obama-era DOJ spokesman hinted that he might have planted the story

Fox also reported that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and FBI lawyer Lisa Page were in the room when Rosenstein raised the subject.

Page had been half of the infamous texting romantic-affair couple who mused in 2016 about how to 'stop' Trump from becoming president.

An Obama-era Justice Department spokesman suggested Friday afternoon that McCabe leaked the story to the Times.

'Dangerous game Andy McCabe is playing right now,' Matthew Miller tweeted.

Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration, lashed out separately at McCabe.

'This story reads like Andy McCabe trying to burn down the house he once lived in,' he tweeted.

'Looks to me like McCabe is trying to get revenge on those he used to work with, after they challenged his honesty and fired him.'

McCabe is himself facing a federal probe over allegations that he misled investigators about the sources of press leaks.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions terminated his employment this year, just days before he was scheduled to retire with a full pension.

In the Post's telling, McCabe had proposed opening an investigation into the president after the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

'What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?' Rosenstein chided him, according to one source.

Hours after the New York Times published its report, Trump pledged to rid the Justice Department of its 'lingering stench' at a campaign rally on Friday night in Missouri.

'Just look at what is being exposed in our Justice Department,' he said during the event in Springfield supporting Republican Senate nominee Josh Hawley, who is running against two-term Democratic senator Claire McCaskill.

'We have great people in the Department of Justice. ... But you've got some real bad ones. You've seen what's happened at the FBI. They're all gone.

'But there's a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too.'

It was unclear what Trump was referring to and he didn't specifically name anyone. However, the president is in a running war with the Justice Department, starting with Jeff Sessions, his hand-picked attorney general.

Matthew Miller called the Times story the result of a 'dangerous game' McCabe is playing while he is himself under federal investigation

President George W. Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer blasted McCabe on Twitter for 'trying to burn down the house he once lived in'

'Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!!' the president's eldest son tweeted. 'Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point?'

Sixteen days ago the Times published an unsigned opinion essay from a purported senior administration official who claimed the Constitution's procedure for firing a president was discussed quietly in the first days of Trump's tenure.

'Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president,' the author wrote. 'But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis.'

Donald Trump Jr. had a different take on Friday, casting the Times report as substantially true and evidence of a cabal out to hamstring his father.

'Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!!' the president's eldest son tweeted. 'Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point?'

'No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump.'

Friday's explosive allegation, based on unnamed sources, stems from a period of time when the White House seemed to ratchet up its chaos level with each day.

Trump had just fired Comey and was pilloried in the press for sharing Israeli intelligence about the ISIS terror army with Russian emissaries in the Oval Office.

And Rosenstein, the Times reports, thought the president had turned him into a patsy by leaning heavily on a memo he wrote when he swung the axe at Comey.

Trump had asked him to summarize the reasons he could use for firing Comey; Rosenstein reportedly never expected his response to be made public.

As a result, Rosenstein began recruiting Cabinet members to execute on a future 25th Amendment plan and suggesting that FBI officials who were on Trump's short list to replace Comey could make clandestine tapes of their job interviews with Trump.

Rosenstein was at the time acting as the de facto attorney general on matters related to the longstanding probe of alleged ties between Russian agents and Trump's presidential campaign.

Sessions had already recused himself from those mattters since he had been a campaign adviser and could be a fact witness in the investigation.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, laid down a marker on Friday, warning the president in a statement not to leverage the Times story as a rationale for jettisoning Rosenstein.

Trump has long loathed Rosenstein for appointing Special Counsel Robrt Mueller after the Sessions recusal.

'This story must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the Special Counsel's investigation,' Schumer said.

Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, was also reportedly in the room with Rosenstein and McCabe when the idea of secretly taping Trump came up

Rosenstein said Friday in a statement to reporters: 'The New York Times's story is inaccurate and factually incorrect.'

'I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.'

The Times reports that Rosenstein never actually recorded conversations with Trump.

The newspaper's sources said Rosenstein spoke about a constitutionally director bloodless coup with Andrew McCabe, who was acting FBI director after Comey's ouster.

McCabe memorialized the conversations in writing, including notes about Rosenstein's desire to recruit Sessions and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to help bring a 25th Amendment plan to fruition.

Rosenstein, according to the Times, had said recording an Oval Office discussion would be easy because White House staff never checked his cell phone before he entered.

In a statement to The Washington Post, McCabe lawyer Michael Bromwich said his client 'drafted memos to memorialize significant discussions he had with high level officials and preserved them so he would have an accurate, contemporaneous record of those discussions.'

'When he was interviewed by the special counsel more than a year ago, he gave all of his memos – classified and unclassified – to the special counsel's office. A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018. He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.'

Page wrote her own memo, the Post reported, but made no mention of the 25th Amendment.