Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wanted former FBI Director James Comey’s advice about appointing a special counsel after playing a major role in the bureau chief’s firing, former bureau Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s FBI interview revealed.
The FBI’s discussion with McCabe in September 2017 focused on the chaos at the Justice Department and FBI after President Trump tossed Comey in May 2017. The notes were released along with 300 pages of witness interviews on Monday, following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by BuzzFeed and CNN for access to documents in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation.
“At some point in their discussion, Rosenstein commented how much he treasured Comey’s intellect and asked McCabe to speak with Comey to get his opinion as to whether a special counsel should be appointed,” McCabe told investigators days after a memo by the deputy attorney general criticizing Comey was cited by Trump in the FBI director’s firing. McCabe shot down the suggestion, and Rosenstein and Comey have attacked each other since.
Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017, and Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel on May 17, 2017. Mueller’s investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin but laid out 10 possible instances of obstruction of justice. Attorney General William Barr and Rosenstein concluded obstruction had not occurred.
McCabe told investigators he learned about Comey’s firing when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked McCabe to head across the street to DOJ headquarters. The news of Comey’s firing was delivered by Sessions, Rosenstein, and then-acting Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Jim Crowell.
“Sessions said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’ve had to fire the director of the FBI.’ McCabe specifically recalled the language Sessions used,” the FBI interview notes state. “Sessions asked McCabe to run the FBI until they made a decision.”
Rosenstein said McCabe shouldn’t mention the firing to “anyone, not even your wife.”
McCabe told investigators you could have “knocked him down with a feather” and that “oh my God” was running through his head the whole way back to the FBI, where he found three documents: a memo by Rosenstein criticizing Comey for his handling of the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illicit private email server, a letter by Sessions referencing Rosenstein’s memo, and a letter from Trump to Comey.
“McCabe recalled seeing people in the hallways of the FBI ‘bawling’ and described the termination as ‘very emotional’ for employees,” the FBI notes state.
“It’s all on you now — don’t screw up,” McCabe says Comey told him when they talked that day.
During his meeting with Trump the next day, the president “probably said something like ‘I fired Director Comey’ because of the investigation last summer ‘and many other reasons’ [but] specifically left it open as to exactly why Comey was fired.” Trump questioned whether McCabe was “part of the resistance.”
“McCabe and others met several times after the termination to discuss whether there was predication to open an obstruction investigation on Trump,” the FBI notes stated. “McCabe first wanted the team to look at the four or more open Russia investigations at the time and to decide if there were others that needed to be opened.” The FBI was investigating former Trump officials: campaign associate Carter Page, foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, campaign manager Paul Manafort, and national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
The handling of these investigations was criticized in DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse report in December. Horowitz previously criticized Comey for leaking his memos to spark the appointment of a special counsel.
McCabe said he and others talked about “the fact that, by investigating the Trump campaign, they were, by definition, ‘sort of’ investigating Trump. As such, they wondered whether it would be accurate to tell Trump he was not under investigation.” Comey had repeatedly assured Trump he was not personally under investigation.
“The termination caused them to focus on whether to take the next step and open a case on Trump himself and whether it was necessary, given the existing investigation into the campaign,” the FBI notes state. “McCabe’s intention was to make sure cases that needed to be opened were opened and in doing so ensure the investigations had a ‘clear, un-erasable footprint’ in case he was fired the next day.”
During one meeting between McCabe, Rosenstein, Crowell, and DOJ attorney Tashina Gauhar, they “discussed whether the investigations” into “collusion” and “obstruction” would be “perceived as revenge.”
McCabe said Rosenstein was unhappy about taking the blame for Comey’s firing and told McCabe he wasn’t searched when visiting the White House, offering that McCabe could “wire him up.” Rosenstein said he “could engage Trump in a recorded conversation to capture Trump’s true intentions in firing Comey,” according to McCabe, an incident about which Rosenstein insists he was being sarcastic.
Rosenstein appointed Mueller the next day.
McCabe was fired in 2018 and is currently under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., over allegations he misled investigators about media leaks. He denies the allegations and has sued the DOJ.
