Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., demanded former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe appear before his panel after McCabe said in a CBS interview that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed a plan to remove President Trump from office.
“After Mr. McCabe’s 60 Minutes interview, it is imperative that he, and others, come before @senjudiciary to fully explain how and why a FISA warrant was issued against Carter Page and answer questions about what appears to be, now more than ever, bias against President Trump,” Graham tweeted Thursday morning.
In his first TV interview since getting fired last year, McCabe echoed prior reporting that Rosenstein talked about secretly using a “wire” to record conversations with Trump. He also claimed Rosenstein told Justice Department officials he could convince Cabinet members to help invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from the White House after firing FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
The Justice Department responded to McCabe’s “60 Minutes” interview, claiming his version of events were “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
Rosenstein, who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to take over the federal Russia investigation after Comey was fired, signed off on at least one of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications seeking the authority to spy on former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, according to a memo released last year by former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The memo also asserts that the so-called “Trump dossier,” which contained unverified claims about Trump’s ties to Russia, was used by the FBI to help obtain the FISA warrants, but key information, including its author’s anti-Trump bias and Democratic benefactors, was left out.
On the House side, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., called on Rosenstein to step down if the reports proved true.
“Rod Rosenstein has no business working at the Department of Justice, and if these latest reports are true, he should not only resign immediately but come before Congress and answer questions,” Meadows tweeted.
President Trump also tore into McCabe, who is embarking on a media tour for his new memoir called “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.” The book will be released next week.
“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!”
McCabe was fired last March, just before he was set to retire and collect a full pension. His ouster came after the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General concluded he deceived investigators about his participation in sharing information with the Wall Street Journal in 2016 about an investigation examining the Clinton Foundation.
