Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, recounted a Justice Department plot to remove Donald Trump from office in a television interview that will air Sunday.

Previewing the next episode of '60 Minutes,' Scott Pelley, a correspondent for CBS, said Thursday that McCabe told him about a plan to approach Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, and ask him to invoke the 25th Amendment.

'There were meetings at the Justice Department in which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,' Pelley reported on CBS 'This Morning' on Thursday.

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, recounted a Justice Department plot to remove Donald Trump from office in a television interview that will air Sunday

WHAT ABOUT PENCE?: Previewing the next episode of '60 Minutes,' Scott Pelley, a correspondent for CBS, said Thursday that McCabe told him about a plan to approach Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States , and ask him to invoke the 25th Amendment

Trump fired back at McCabe on Twitter on Thursday morning during a block of time in which he usually does have anything on his public or private work schedule

Trump invoked McCabe's wife Jill, who ran for office as a Democrat in Virginia and lost. She had the financial backing of an organization that is close to Hillary Clinton

Pelley said McCabe told him they were 'counting noses' of Cabinet officials who would vote to remove Trump after he fired James Comey in May of 2017.

'This was not perceived to be a joke,' Pelley asserted on CBS.

The journalist said the conversation took place in the eight days between Comey's dismissal and the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel.

Trump met with the Russian ambassador the day after he ousted Comey, the former FBI director, and the Russian foreign minister at the White House.

His campaign, several of his associates, including his one-time National Security Advsior Michael Flynn, were under federal investigation for improper contacts during the election with Russia at the time.

'The highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president,' Pelley reported.

McCabe is the first person to confirm that the 25th Amendment came up in the meetings. The ex-law enforcement official was later fired himself over conversations with the media that an inspector general deemed inappropriate.

Reacting to McCabe's claims in an interview with MSNBC, the vice president, who is currently traveling abroad, said that the suggestion that Trump is unfit for office is 'absurd,' given his record of accomplishments.

'I couldn't be more proud to stand with him. The words and the writings of a disgraced FBI agent won't change that fact for the American people,' Pence said.

He further claimed that he had 'never' heard of the Justice Department plot that McCabe described before, suggesting that it never left the idea stage.

'I have never heard any discussion of the 25th Amendment by members of this government, and I would never expect to,' Pence asserted.

Trump has claimed that Comey, McCabe and cohorts of theirs who worked on Hillary Clinton's email case and the Russian meddling probe were 'crooked' cops, and that's why he got rid of them.

'There were meetings at the Justice Department in which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,' Pelley reported on CBS 'This Morning' on Thursday

McCabe's interview set Trump off again, with the president answering him in tweets on Thursday morning during a period of time in which Trump typically has no events or meetings.

'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 - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won,' Trump said.

He invoked McCabe's wife Jill's failed candidacy for office in Virginia, where she ran for office as a Democrat with the financial backing of an organization that is close to Hillary Clinton.

The president suggested the connection to the former secretary of state who opposed him for the Oval Office caused McCabe to go easy on Clinton in the FBI's probe into her use of a private email and server.

'Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' the president wrote.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders claimed that McCabe 'lied' and has 'no credibility' in a statement later.

'Andrew McCabe was fired in total disgrace from the FBI because he lied to investigators on multiple occasions, including under oath. His selfish and destructive agenda drove him to open a completely baseless investigation into the President,' she said. 'His actions were so shameful that he was referred to federal prosecutors.'

Sanders added, 'Andrew McCabe has no credibility and is an embarrassment to the men and women of the FBI and our great country.'

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that McCabe's comments represent a 'bias against President Trump' that he intends to explore.

McCabe told CBS that the Justice Department opened counterintelligence and obstruction of justice investigations into Trump the day after he fired Comey.

He said he moved swiftly to shore up the Russia probe such that someone appointed by Trump could not come in and shutter it without creating a paper trail.

'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 that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace,' he told Pelley in a clip that aired already.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe last May, two days short of his eligibility for retirement, amid claims that the law enforcement official leaked information to the media.

DOJ's inspector general ruled that he made unauthorized disclosures and did not tell the truth on multiple occasions, including when he was under oath.

McCabe denies those allegations and challenged the 'lies' he said were being told about his family. He claimed through a lawyer that the decision to fire him days before he would have received his government benefits was intentionally rushed.

In a chapter of his new book, 'The Threat,' McCabe describes at least one occasion in which Trump brought up his wife.

McCabe says he documented the call via memo, much like Comey says he kept logs of his conversations with the president.

'He said, How is your wife? I said, She’s fine. He said, When she lost her election, that must have been very tough to lose. How did she handle losing? Is it tough to lose?'

Recalling the conversation, McCabe says he told Trump, 'I guess it’s tough to lose anything. But she’s rededicated herself to her career and her job and taking care of kids in the emergency room. That’s what she does.

'He replied in a tone that sounded like a sneer. He said, “Yeah, that must’ve been really tough. To lose. To be a loser.” '

McCabe says he wrote a contemporaneous memo about what Trump told him that day, as he said he habitually does with 'a person who cannot be trusted' to recall the conversation as it happened.

He suggests in the passage that Trump couldn't be reasoned with, writing in an excerpt that appeared Thursday in The Atlantic that Trump 'flew off the handle' in a call on an unsecure line the day after he fired Comey over McCabe's decision to allow the former bureau chief to hitch a ride from Los Angeles on a government plane that was flying back to Washington.

Comey was in LA giving a speech when he found out that Trump had fired him. McCabe said he decided as the acting head of the bureau that the threat posed to Comey's life was imminent enough that he should remain under federal protection.

'It was coming back anyway,' he writes of the plane. 'The president flew off the handle: That’s not right! I don’t approve of that! That’s wrong! He reiterated his point five or seven times.

'I said, I’m sorry that you disagree, sir. But it was my decision, and that’s how I decided. The president said, I want you to look into that! I thought to myself: What am I going to look into? I just told you I made that decision.'

McCabe derides Trump in the passage for his willingness to 'comment prejudicially on criminal prosecutions' and investigations 'on ones that potentially affect him.'

'He is not just sounding a dog whistle. He is lobbying for a result. The president has stepped over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he has encountered them,' said the former law enforcement official who Trump targeted on Twitter repeatedly.

Emphasizing his point, he said, 'Every day brings a new low, with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants.'

McCabe claims, for instance, that the day after he fired Comey that the move would be popular because the law enforcement official who declined to recommend criminal charges against Clinton was hated by so many people.

The president then asked McCabe if he thought it would be a good idea for him to visit the FBI, to boost morale. McCabe recalls telling him that he should, deciding that the denial of a trip to headquarters wasn't worth the 'ultimate sacrifice' of losing his job.

McCabe sensed that White House Counsel Don McGahn didn't want to tell the president not to come, either, as he directed Trump back to McCabe for a final answer.

'It was a bizarre performance. I said it would be fine. I had no real choice. This was not worth the ultimate sacrifice,' he writes.

Summing it up, McCabe said, 'In this moment, I felt the way I’d felt in 1998, in a case involving the Russian Mafia, when I sent a man I’ll call Big Felix in to meet with a Mafia boss named Dimitri Gufield. The same kind of thing was happening here, in the Oval Office.

'Dimitri had wanted Felix to endorse his protection scheme. This is a dangerous business, and it’s a bad neighborhood, and you know, if you want, I can protect you from that. If you want my protection. I can protect you. Do you want my protection?' McCabe writes. 'The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate.'

McCabe hints in the book that Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, feels as if he cannot speak freely, either.

Trump has also directed public ire at Rosenstein, who remains at Justice, having repaired a broken relationship with the president enough to keep his job.

He writes that Rosenstein told him days after Comey's firing that that there was no one at DOJ anymore who he felt he could trust. He asked McCabe's opinion on hiring a special counsel.

'This is the gist of what I said: I feel strongly that the investigation would be best served by having a special counsel. I’ve been thinking about the Clinton email case and how we got twisted in knots over how to announce a result that did not include bringing charges against anyone,' McCabe writes. 'Had we appointed a special counsel in the Clinton case, we might not be in the present situation.'

He says he told Rosenstein, 'Unless or until you make the decision to appoint a special counsel, the FBI will be subjected to withering criticism that could destroy the credibility of both the Justice Department and the FBI.'

Mueller's appointment was a decision left to Rosenstein after Sessions recused himself from overseeing the investigation. He decided to sit the probe out on account of the fact that he worked on the president's campaign.

Rosenstein did not initially jump at the idea of bringing a special counsel on board, McCabe writes, but came around to the idea. He revealed the hiring of Mueller on May 17, 2017, during a briefing for top House and Senate leaders.

McCabe says of the experience, ;When I came out of the Capitol, it felt like crossing a finish line. If I got nothing else done as acting director, I had done the one thing I needed to do.'