President Trump has accused former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, of “illegally” attempting to remove him from the White House through coup-like means.
“Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught…..” Trump wrote on Twitter Monday morning.
Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2019
In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on CBS Sunday night, McCabe said Rosenstein “was not joking” when he suggested recording Oval Office conversations with Trump about his firing former FBI director James Comey in May 2017.
McCabe recalled Rosenstein telling him, “I never get searched when I go into the White House. I could easily wear a recording device. They wouldn’t know it was there.” Rosenstein has said his comments were meant as a joke.
“Now, he was not joking,” McCabe told CBS. “He was absolutely serious. And in fact, he brought it up in the next meeting we had.”
McCabe said Rosenstein was also “counting votes or possible votes” to figure out if enough Cabinet members would agree to remove Trump from office under the 25th Amendment.
Trump tweeted Monday, “There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous ‘insurance policy’ in full action!”
Former attorney general Jeff Sessions fired McCabe nearly a year ago — just two days before he was due to receive a full pension — after the Department of Justice inspector general determined he had lied about his role in leaking information to a media outlet regarding the Clinton Foundation investigation.
Both McCabe and Rosenstein had been unhappy with Trump’s pressuring the latter to mention Russia in a memo that outlined Comey’s firing.
McCabe’s forthcoming book, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, claims Rosenstein was furious after Trump made the request of him.
“Put together, these circumstances were articulable facts that indicated that a crime may have been committed. The president may have been engaged in obstruction of justice in the firing of Jim Comey,” McCabe told CBS. “So all those same sorts of facts cause us to wonder: Is there an inappropriate relationship, a connection between this president and our most fearsome enemy, the government of Russia?”
