Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said in a spring 2017 memo that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein believed then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly could be recruited in an effort to remove President Trump from office.
In an explosive interview with CBS, an excerpt of which was aired Thursday, McCabe asserted Rosenstein did tell Justice Department officials about wearing a “wire” to record conversations with Trump and that he was recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office in the days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
The New York Times reports that it obtained an excerpt from one of McCabe’s contemporaneous memos on his interactions DOJ officials. He wrote “we discussed the president’s capacity and the possibility he could be removed from office under the 25th Amendment.” He further noted that Rosenstein examined the issue and decided that a “majority or 8 of the 15 cabinet officials” would be needed to follow through.
McCabe also said Rosenstein suggested that sympathetic Cabinet members who might join their cause included Sessions and Kelly.
Rosenstein has previously denied the reporting on talk of removing Trump and using a hidden wire, while sources told NBC News that he was only joking about secretly recording the president.
Sessions served as attorney general until November 2018 after more than a year of public scoldings from the president for recusing himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Kelly went on to be Trump’s White House chief of staff and retired at the end of last year.
A Justice Department rebuffed Rosenstein’s comments on “60 Minutes.”
“As to the specific portions of this interview provided to the Department of Justice by 60 Minutes in advance, the Deputy Attorney General again rejects Mr. McCabe’s recitation of events as inaccurate and factually incorrect,” A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement. “The Deputy Attorney General 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 spokesperson further dismissed the idea of a coordinated effort between Rosenstein and Comey to appoint Mueller to take over the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“Finally, the Deputy Attorney General never spoke to Mr. Comey about appointing a Special Counsel,” the spokesperson said. “The Deputy Attorney General in fact appointed Special Counsel Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation. Subsequent to his removal, DOJ’s Inspector General found that Mr. McCabe did not tell the truth to federal authorities on multiple occasions, leading to his termination from the FBI.”
McCabe, a 21-year veteran of the FBI who briefly served as acting FBI director after Comey was fired, has a book due out next week titled “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.”
In his memoir, he writes Rosenstein spiraled into rage and paranoia after Trump ordered him to write the memo he cited as justification to fire Comey. In a private meeting at the Justice Department days after Comey was pushed out on May 12, McCabe writes Rosenstein was “glassy-eyed” and said he was sleep deprived after he came to the conclusion that the White House had used him. “He said it wasn’t his idea. The president had ordered him to write the memo justifying the firing,” McCabe writes. Rosenstein also said, “There’s no one here that I can trust.”
McCabe was fired on March 16, 2018, two days before he planned to retire on his 50th birthday and collect a full pension, after the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General determined that he misled investigators about the role he had in leaking information to the Wall Street Journal in October 2016 about the investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
He “lacked candor” on four occasions when interviewing with internal investigators, the IG report said. In April, it was revealed that the Justice Department IG had referred its findings to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for possible criminal charges. Federal prosecutors used a grand jury to investigate McCabe.
McCabe told CBS he ordered an obstruction of justice investigation into Trump after he fired Comey in the spring of 2017.
In a pair of tweets Thursday, Trump tore into McCabe.
“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. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of ‘insurance policy’ in case I won,” Trump said. “Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign – he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article contained a clause that said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has been fired when it has not been the case. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
