Via Fox News:
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, speaking out in a new book and TV interview, detailed the central role he played in the bureau’s Russia probe and the eventual appointment of a special counsel — while reportedly describing Justice Department meetings where officials discussed ousting President Trump.
McCabe, who was fired from the bureau in March 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions after it was determined he lied to investigators about a leak, spoke to “60 Minutes” ahead of the release of his new book, “The Threat.” CBS News’ Scott Pelley revealed parts of the interview Thursday morning.
The excerpts detail the eight days between the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. After Comey’s firing, McCabe was acting director of the FBI.
“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. And that was something that troubled me greatly,” McCabe said in one excerpt, referring to a phone call he had with Trump on May 10, 2017.
McCabe, who also detailed that phone call in his book, took the call from the president while members of the bureau’s Russia team were in the room. The call, according to an excerpt from McCabe’s book published in The Atlantic Thursday, largely focused on Trump celebrating the firing of Comey and saying he was getting positive feedback for the decision.
Pelley went on to ask, “How long was it after that that you decided to start the obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations involving the president?”
“I think the next day, I met with the team investigating the Russia cases,” McCabe confirmed. “And I asked the team to go back and conduct an assessment to determine where are we with these efforts and what steps do we need to take going forward.”
He added: “I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were I removed quickly and reassigned or fired and the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace. I wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground. And if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they’d made that decision.”