Andrew McCabe reveals conversations about removing Trump from office
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox
Get our free Inside Washington email
Donald Trump is being accused of waging a “relentless attack” on the FBI since taking office as the fallout from his decision to declare a national emergency to secure border wall funding continues.
The remark comes from former deputy director of the bureau Andrew McCabe - dismissed by ex-attorney general Jeff Sessions in March 2018 after being accused of leaking information to the media - in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition to promote his new insider account of the bureau, The Threat.
President Trump has already responded angrily on Twitter to Mr McCabe's appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday, in which the latter said he had discussed removing the president under the 25th Amendment and ordered an investigation into whether ex-director James Comey was removed in May 2017 to impede the Russian election hacking investigation.
Mr McCabe also revealed that when the president told Mr Rosenstein to put in writing his concerns with former FBI Director James Comey — a document the White House initially held up as justification for his firing — the president explicitly asked the Justice Department official to reference Russia in the memo. Mr Rosenstein did not want to, Mr McCabe said, and the memo that was made public upon Mr Comey’s dismissal did not mention Russia and focused instead on Mr Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation.
“He explained to the president that he did not need Russia in his memo,” Mr McCabe said. “And the president responded, “I understand that, I am asking you to put Russia in the memo anyway.”
The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation
Show all 17
The news arrived as California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced he was suing Mr Trump over his emergency declaration to fund a wall on the US-Mexico border, with as many as twelve states joining the lawsuit.
California has repeatedly challenged Trump in court. Mr Becerra has filed at least 45 lawsuits against the administration.
Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has refused to deny claims his country nominated US president Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize "because the White House asked them to".
Mr Trump said on Friday that he had received a “beautiful copy” of a letter sent by Shinzo Abe to the Nobel committee.
The comment sparked criticism in Japan and Mr Abe was questioned about whether he had done so in parliament, refusing to give an answer.
Self-styled "guerrilla marketer" Dion Cini, 49, has meanwhile been kicked out of Disneyland for unfurling a Trump 2020 banner in violation of the children's theme park's rules.
President Trump's demand that European countries take back their citizens fighting in Syria has received a mixed reaction as nations ponder how to bring home-grown Isis extremists to trial.
Isis prisoners could be exposed to torture or the death penalty if they remain in jail in Syria or Iraq and the EU opposes the death penalty.
But few European countries have embassies in Syria or Iraq, let alone extradition treaties to get their citizens back.
Proving who is who and gathering solid evidence against suspects that would stand up in European courts is virtually impossible.
Then there is the question of what to do with the wives and children of European jihadis.
"It is certainly not as easy as they think in America," German foreign minister Heiko Maas told reporters at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.
French officials are concerned because in 2015 and 2016, an Isis cell of French and Belgian fighters crossed from Syria into Turkey, eventually launching deadly attacks on Paris and Brussels.
Britain refuses to take back citizens who joined Isis and has stripped them of their citizenship while Belgium has said previously that it would not make any great effort to secure the release of 12 citizens imprisoned in Syria and two in Iraq.
A little more from Andrew McCabe's Morning Edition interview on US relations with Russia:
"I don't know that we have ever seen in all of history an example of the number, the volume and the significance of the contacts between people in and around the president, his campaign, with our most serious, our existential international enemy: the government of Russia. That's just remarkable to me," he says.
Mr McCabe said he found the evidence for collusion put forward so far by Robert Mueller "incredibly persuasive".
According to NPR, Mr McCabe's new book The Threat includes an account of an FBI briefing with President Trump that convinced the author his boss had "gone completely off the rails from the very beginning".
Discussing possible Russian use of diplomatic compounds on US soil to gather intelligence on American spy agencies, Mr Trump reportedly went off on a "diatribe" about North Korea, saying he believed the Asian state had not launched missiles because Russian president Vladimir Putin had assured him "it was all a hoax".
"How do we impart wisdom and knowledge and the best of our intelligence assessments to someone who chooses to believe our adversaries over our intelligence professionals?" Mr McCabe rather pointedly asks.
In the NPR interview, Andrew McCabe addresses the panicked atmosphere in the Justice Department in spring 2017 and his book's revelation that deputy attorney-general Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a recording device in the White House to collect evidence about Donald Trump's intention to dismiss James Comey.
"I was taken aback by the offer. I told him that I would consider it, I would discuss it with the investigative team, and I'd let him know. I did talk to my attorneys back at FBI headquarters about it."
The White House's response to Andrew McCabe's media appearances over the weekend has been to attack his character, a tactic with which the below is pretty representative.
A man with a banner and an American flag has climbed a construction crane near a Florida campus where President Trump is scheduled to speak today.
The Miami Herald reports the man spent about two hours atop the crane at the northern edge of the Florida International University campus in the Miami suburb of Sweetwater.
It was unclear what was written in black on the man's white banner. Only the words "Mr Presidente" were visible as the rest of the banner twisted in the wind.
Police had blocked off streets around the campus and warned traffic would be interrupted by Mr Trump's visit.
The president is expected to speak about the political turmoil in Venezuela, backing self-declared president Juan Guaido and urging the country's military to side with him.
The campus is just south of Doral, a city home to the largest concentration of Venezuelans in the US.
In other news, the president has appointed the son-in-law of new attorney-general William Barr, Tyler McGaughey, to serve as a White House legal adviser, provoking fresh conflict-of-interest concerns.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies