US deputy attorney general wanted to remove Trump from office: Ex-FBI director

US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had openly discussed removing President Donald Trump from power in 2017, according to former FBI director Andrew McCabe.

McCabe told CBS News on Sunday that Rosenstein raised the issue after Trump's firing of former FBI director James Comey.

"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," said McCabe, who briefly took over after Comey as the acting FBI director.

Asked whether Rosenstein was keen on “getting rid of the President of the United States one way or another” by trying to invoke the 25th amendment of the US Constitution, McCabe said he could not confirm.

"But what I can say is the deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time," he added.

Rosenstein denied the claim, saying he even considered wearing a wire to secretly tape his conversations with the US leader as a “joke” if he actually discussed the issue.

Trump sacked Comey in the middle of tensions over an FBI probe into allegations of collusion between Trump’s team and Russian government during the 2016 Us presidential election.

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US President Donald Trump has renewed his attacks on former FBI director James Comey, saying his firing of Comey in 2017 was "a great day for America.”

While some in the FBI were alarmed by Comey's firing, McCabe said he took necessary steps back then to make sure the Russia investigation was on “absolutely solid ground.”

He said he did not recall how the 25th amendment came up in the conversation with Rosenstein.

"It was just another kind of topic that he jumped to in the midst of a wide-ranging conversation," he clarified.

The 25th amendment to the US Constitution lays out the process of replacing the president with the vice president, if the chief executive is dead, removed, incapacitated or has resigned.

Read More:

• Trump warned against firing Rosenstein

Trump fired McCabe as well in 2018 for “lack of condor” amid the internal investigation into the FBI’s handling of a 2016 probe on Hillary Clinton, the democratic pick in the presidential election.

Senate to grill Rosenstein, McCabe over 'coup' attempt

Meanwhile, Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump ally, said Sunday that he would launch a Senate investigation into the "coup."

“There’s an allegation by the acting FBI director at the time that the deputy attorney general was basically trying to do an administrative coup,” the South Carolina senator, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, told CBS.

“[To] take the president down to the 25th amendment process. The deputy attorney general denies it. I promise your viewers the following, that we will have a hearing about who’s telling the truth,” he added.

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