McCabe's Trump removal claim prompts 'coup' probe

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Discussions about removing U.S. President Donald Trump from office were held in 2017, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe claimed in an interview aired on Sunday evening.

McCabe, who is a frequent target of Trump's ire on Twitter and was ultimately fired by the president, was speaking to CBS's 60 Minutes as part of a media blitz promoting his new book.

The president hit out late on Sunday evening by retweeting his own criticisms of McCabe, likely raising the profile of the former FBI man's book The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.

The book, the latest in a series of insider accounts about the Trump presidency, is due for release on Tuesday and has surged up the Amazon non-fiction charts on pre-sales.

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McCabe told CBS – but did not write in the book – that invoking the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to remove Trump was raised by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after FBI Director James Comey was fired on May 9, 2017.

"Rod raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," McCabe, who became acting FBI director after Comey's dismissal, said. "The deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time."

A similar claim was reported by The New York Times in September 2018. Rosenstein then rejected the suggestion he seriously discussed either removing Trump from office or wearing a wire to record conversations with the president as "inaccurate and factually incorrect."

Senator Lindsey Graham watches as President Donald Trump welcomes a college football team to the White House in Washington, DC, January 14, 2019. /VCG Photo

Lindsey Graham, chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, on Sunday described the alleged discussions as an attempted "administrative coup" and promised a "hearing about who's telling the truth."

"I know he's selling a book, and we need to take with a grain of salt maybe what Mr. McCabe is telling us," Graham, who said he was prepared to issue subpoenas, told CBS's Face the Nation. "But he went on national television and he made an accusation that floors me."

The 25th Amendment

What is it? Section one of the amendment allows for the replacement of the president in the event of death, removal, resignation or incapacitation. Section two allows for the replacement of a vice president.

How does it work? Removing a president requires approval from a majority of the cabinet, the vice president and two-thirds majorities in Congress.

Has it ever been used? The amendment, ratified after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 to clear up uncertainties over presidential and vice-presidential succession, has been used to replace a vice president – but never to remove a president.

The publication of the The Threat has reignited a long-running feud between Trump and McCabe.

In the 60 Minutes interview, McCabe claimed he was fired because he started two investigations into Trump. "I believe I was fired because I opened a case against the president of the United States,” he said.

According to Politico, McCabe said that on becoming acting FBI director he opened a criminal inquiry into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey and a separate probe into the president's ties with Russia.

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In the book, McCabe also recounts a phone conversation in which the president goaded him over his wife's defeat in her bid to become elected as a Democrat in the Virginia legislature, and accuses Trump of "ordering" Rosenstein to write a memo which led to Comey's dismissal – a claim the White House has rejected.

He was officially dismissed less than two days before he was due to formally retire in March 2018 for "lack of candor" in an internal investigation into the FBI's handling of a probe into Hillary Clinton. The firing was celebrated by Trump as a "great day for democracy."