WASHINGTON — Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said that President Trump wanted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to mention the Russia investigation in his memo outlining why FBI Director James Comey should be fired.
“He explained to the president that he did not need Russia in his memo. And the president responded, ‘I understand that, I am asking you to put Russia in the memo anyway,’” McCabe said in a new interview with “60 Minutes.”
Rosenstein didn’t want to include Russia, and told the president as much, because it could look like he was obstructing the Russia probe — and giving Trump cover.
“Rod was concerned by his interactions with the president, who seemed to be very focused on firing the director and saying things like, ‘Make sure you put Russia in your memo.’ That concerned Rod in the same way that it concerned me and the FBI investigators on the Russia case,” McCabe recalled.
The final memo didn’t include the Russia probe as a reason Rosenstein thought Comey should go, but Trump brought it up anyway — in an interview with Lester Holt and an Oval Office meeting with Russian officials. Prior to that, the president had asked Comey to discontinue investigating Michael Flynn, Trump’s original national security adviser. And then he fired Comey in May 2017.
“Put together, these circumstances were articulable facts that indicated that a crime may have been committed,” McCabe said. “The president may have been engaged in obstruction of justice in the firing of Jim Comey.”