Ex-FBI official McCabe confirms discussions about removing Trump after Comey firing

The FBI's former acting director said he began an obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigation involving U.S. President Donald Trump and his ties to Russia shortly after Trump fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017, CBS News reported on Thursday.

Former FBI acting director Andrew McCabe said he was disturbed by his conversation with Trump following Comey's dismissal, and got the investigations started the following day, according to excerpts from an interview with 60 Minutes to be broadcast on Sunday.

"I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage," McCabe said. "And that was something that troubled me greatly."

McCabe has written a book, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, to be released next week.

"I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground ... that, were I removed quickly and reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace."

It was the first public confirmation of the investigation by an official who was involved.

McCabe told CBS there were meetings at the Justice Department to discuss the possibility of removing Trump under the constitution's 25th Amendment, outlining how the cabinet can decide whether a president can no longer do his job.

McCabe also confirmed a New York Times report in September that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein considered wearing a wire in meetings with Trump, CBS reported. Rosenstein denied the story at the time.

The Department of Justice released a statement Thursday morning stating "there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the [deputy attorney general] in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."

"'[Rosenstein] never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references," the statement said.

Trump, Graham attack McCabe's credibility

CBS said the events occurred in the eight days between Comey's firing and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to take over the investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, including the obstruction of justice and counterintelligence probes.

Mueller's office is examining possible coordination between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Moscow has denied interfering, and Trump says there was no collusion with his campaign.

In June 2017, Comey told a Senate committee he believed Trump had directed him to drop an FBI probe into the president's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, as part of the broader Russia investigation.

McCabe himself was fired in March 2018 by then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who cited an internal investigation that found McCabe leaked information to reporters and misled investigators about his actions. McCabe said he was targeted over the Russia probe.

Trump has continually alleged that McCabe was biased in favour of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, bringing up a 2015 Virginia election in which McCabe's wife ran as a Democrat.

The president continued that line of attack on Twitter on Thursday, and called McCabe "a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country."

Trump ally Lindsey Graham, the chair of the Senate judicial committee, also accused McCabe of bias on Twitter and told reporters that the committee would be calling on the former FBI official to testify before Congress.