Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe said in an interview that aired on Sunday that a “crime may have been committed” when US President Donald Trump fired the head of the FBI and tried to publicly undermine an investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
McCabe also said in the interview with 60 Minutes that the FBI had good reason to open a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was in league with Russia, and therefore a possible national security threat, following the May 2017 firing of then-FBI director James Comey.
“And the idea is, if the president committed obstruction of justice, fired the director of the of the FBI to negatively impact or to shut down our investigation of Russia’s malign activity and possibly in support of his campaign, as a counterintelligence investigator you have to ask yourself, ‘Why would a president of the United States do that?’” McCabe said.
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“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,” he added.
Asked whether US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was onboard with the obstruction and counterintelligence investigations, McCabe said: “Absolutely.”
A US Department of Justice spokeswoman declined to comment on Sunday night.
McCabe also said that when Trump told Rosenstein to put in writing his concerns with Comey — a document the White House initially held up as justification for his firing — Trump explicitly asked him to reference Russia in the memo.
Rosenstein did not want to, McCabe said, and the memo that was made public upon Comey’s dismissal did not mention Russia and focused instead on Comey’s handling of the investigation into former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail server.
“He explained to the president that he did not need Russia in his memo,” McCabe said. “And the president responded: ‘I understand that, I am asking you to put Russia in the memo anyway.’”
Trump said in a TV interview days after Comey’s firing that he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he fired Comey.
Those actions, including a separate request by Trump that the FBI end an investigation into former national adviser Michael Flynn, made the FBI concerned that the president was illegally trying to obstruct the Russia probe.
“Put together, these circumstances were articulable facts that indicated that a crime may have been committed,” McCabe said. “The president may have been engaged in obstruction of justice in the firing of Jim Comey.”
McCabe was fired last year after being accused of misleading investigators during an internal probe into a news media disclosure.
The allegation was referred to the US Attorney’s office in Washington for possible prosecution, but no charges have been brought.
McCabe has denied having intentionally lied and on Sunday said that he believes his firing was politically motivated.
“I believe I was fired because I opened a case against the president of the United States,” he said.
McCabe also said Rosenstein, after Comey’s firing, had proposed wearing a wire to record Trump.
McCabe said he took the remark seriously, though the Justice Department in September last year — responding to a New York Times report that first revealed the conversation — issued a statement from an unnamed official who was in the room and interpreted the remark as sarcastic.
McCabe said the remark was made during a conversation about why Trump had fired Comey.
“And in the context of that conversation, the deputy attorney general offered to wear a wire into the White House. He said: ‘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,’” McCabe said.
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