Ex-acting FBI director said there were meetings to discuss whether president could be removed under 25th amendment

Andrew McCabe, the former acting FBI director, has said top administration officials talked seriously about removing Donald Trump from office just months after he became president.

Rosenstein did not want to write memo justifying Comey firing – new book Read more

McCabe, who briefly ran the FBI after Trump fired James Comey as the bureau’s director, told CBS’s 60 Minutes that meetings took place at the justice department in the days following the firing to discuss whether Trump could be removed under the 25th amendment.

Play Video 5:26 What is the 25th amendment and could it remove Trump? – video explainer

The 25th amendment allows the vice-president and the majority of the cabinet to strip the president’s powers if they determine he is unable to discharge the duties of his office.

McCabe is the first official to publicly confirm that such a move was discussed. The New York Times previously reported that the talks took place, citing anonymous sources. McCabe is currently promoting his new book The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.

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According to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, who appeared on CBS This Morning on Thursday to discuss his interview with McCabe, the talks happened in the eight days between Comey’s firing in 2017 and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russian election interference and links between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

“The highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president,” Pelley said. “They were counting noses. They were not asking cabinet members whether they would vote for or against removing the president, but they were speculating this person would be with us, that person would not, and they were counting noses in that effort.”

The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, offered to wear a wire to record incriminating conversations with Trump, McCabe said, according to Pelley. A justice department official had claimed to the Times that the comment about wearing a wire was made sarcastically, but McCabe told 60 Minutes it was serious.

“It came up more than once, and it was so serious that he took it to the lawyers at the FBI to discuss it,” Pelley said.

Responding to the claims on Twitter, Trump tweeted: “McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said: “Andrew McCabe has no credibility and is an embarrassment to the men and women of the FBI and our great country.”

In the interview, set to air Sunday, McCabe also said he authorized an investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia in the aftermath of the Comey firing. He confirmed reports that the FBI began to investigate whether Trump had obstructed justice, and whether he was knowingly or unknowingly acting as an agent of Russia.

McCabe said he ordered the inquiry to protect the investigation into Russian election interference after meeting Trump, because he feared he would be fired and the investigation would end.

“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,” he said in a portion of the 60 Minutes interview released Thursday.

“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, or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace,” he said. “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 made that decision.”

McCabe was fired two days before he was due to retire.

A copy of McCabe’s book was obtained by the Guardian in advance of its widespread release.

McCabe makes no apparent mention in the book of any discussion regarding the 25th amendment, nor any other proposal to unseat the president.

Instead, McCabe makes what may be a coded reference to Rosenstein’s suggestion that he covertly record Trump. He writes that Rosenstein “wondered aloud” if there was any way to “collect explicit evidence” on Trump’s motivations for firing Comey, but concluded this was not feasible.

The book recounts the events of 15 May 2017 and then moves on to 17 May. The New York Times, citing unidentified former justice department officials, reported on Thursday that the discussion of the 25th amendment took place on 16 May.

The Atlantic published an excerpt from his new book on Thursday, where he recounted unusual conversations with Trump after Comey’s firing.

Trump called McCabe’s wife a “loser” over her failed run for a state senate seat and became irate over his decision to allow Comey to fly home on a government plane after he was fired, McCabe wrote.

“Presidents do not, typically, call FBI directors. There should be no direct contact between the president and the director, except for national security purposes,” he wrote. “The reason is simple. Investigations and prosecutions need to be pursued without a hint of suspicion that someone who wields power has put a thumb on the scale.”

Jon Swaine contributed to this report