US officials discussed if Trump could be removed from office: Ex-FBI deputy director
US Justice Department officials were so concerned about President Donald Trump's fitness for office in May 2017 that they discussed whether Trump could be removed from office, according to former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
Those discussions came following Trump's controversial firing of FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017, McCabe said in an interview with CBS News scheduled to air Sunday.
McCabe said Justice Department officials discussed bringing the Cabinet together to consider using the US Constitution’s 25th Amendment to remove Trump.
McCabe said he was worried that investigations into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice would be shut down after Trump fired Comey.
He said he was greatly alarmed by the possibility that the president “might have won the White House with the aid of the government of Russia.”
“I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground, in an indelible fashion,” McCabe said. “That were I removed quickly, or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace.”
McCabe was fired from the FBI last year by then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the Justice Department inspector general concluded that he had lied during an internal investigation into a news media disclosure.
McCabe has denied the allegations and has blasted his firing as part of the Trump administration’s “war on the FBI” and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation.
Mueller’s office is examining possible collusion between Trump’s election campaign and Russia. Moscow has denied interfering and Trump says there was no collusion with his campaign.
Trump, who has frequently criticized Comey, McCabe and the Russia inquiry, on Thursday attacked McCabe on Twitter as a leaker and a “disgrace to the FBI.”
"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," Trump said in a tweet.
McCabe reportedly claims in his upcoming book, "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump," that the Republican president deliberately lies to get what he wants.
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