PLOT TO OUST THE PREZ
Ex-FBI big reveals talks to dump Don
Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe says Justice Department officials grew so concerned with President Trump after he fired James Comey that they considered recruiting Cabinet members in an effort to remove him from office under the 25th Amendment.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” McCabe also confirmed that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s offer to wear a wire in the White House was serious and batted around with Justice Department lawyers.
CBS reporter Scott Pelley, who interviewed McCabe for the report airing Sunday, said the department was trying to determine “what to do with the president” in May 2017 between Comey’s firing as FBI director and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to run the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Pelley, citing McCabe, said on “CBS This Morning,” which aired snippets of the interview on Thursday.
McCabe said he was so troubled by his conversations with Trump after Comey’s firing that he launched an investigation into whether that constituted obstruction of justice and started a counterintelligence probe into whether the president had been compromised by Russian agents.
He said he wanted the investigations documented in case something happened to him.
“I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that, were I removed quickly and reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace,” McCabe said.
Trump lashed out at McCabe later on Twitter.
“Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a ‘poor little Angel’ when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey,” Trump wrote.
“I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of ‘insurance policy’ in case I won.”
About 15 minutes later, he continued the verbal assault.
“McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country,” the president added.
The Justice Department issued a statement saying McCabe’s version of events was way off base.
“The Deputy Attorney General [Rosenstein] never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references. As the Deputy Attorney General previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment,” the statement said.
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe in March 2018, a day before the career FBI agent was going to retire.
Sessions at the time said McCabe “lacked candor” with investigators and made “an unauthorized disclosure to the news media.”
McCabe is on a promotion tour for his book, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” which is being released Tuesday.