Removing the president but not a coup

You learn so much from reading the enemy's official media. Read this account in the New York Times: "Still, administration officials said that they did not expect that the military would go so far as to carry out a coup. “There was talk of how they might remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that,” the administration official said. But the official said that the speculation had focused on legal maneuvers to remove the president, not a coup." So the US Obama administration was for removing the president but not for a coup? Please explain that one.