• e-mail

President Trump told his top intelligence officials that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin more than he did them, fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe claimed on Sunday.

McCabe said that he was told by an FBI official that Trump was convinced by Putin that North Korea was incapable of hitting the United States with ballistic missiles - even though American spy agencies claimed otherwise.

‘I don’t care, I believe Putin,’ Trump reportedly told government officials during a conversation about North Korea.

McCabe said he thought Trump’s comments were ‘shocking.’

‘It's just an astounding thing to say,’ he told 60 Minutes.

‘To spend the time and effort and energy that we all do in the intelligence community to produce products that will help decision makers and the ultimate decision maker, the President of the United States - make policy decisions, and to be confronted with an absolute disbelief in those efforts and a unwillingness to learn the true state of affairs that he has to deal with every day was just shocking.’

Fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says President Trump told his intelligence chiefs that he believed the word of Russian President Vladimir Putin over theirs. McCabe's interview with 60 Minutes aired on Sunday

McCabe said he began an obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigation involving Trump and his ties to Russia after Trump fired bureau Director James Comey in May 2017. 

McCabe, who became acting director after Comey’s firing, said he was disturbed by his conversation with Trump following Comey’s dismissal and got the investigations started the following day. 

'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. And that was something that troubled me greatly,' said McCabe. 

In the first public confirmation of the investigation by an official who was involved, McCabe described events that occurred in the eight days between Comey’s firing and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to take over the investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

McCabe said that he was told by an FBI official that Trump was convinced by Putin that North Korea was incapable of hitting the United States with ballistic missiles - even though American spy agencies claimed otherwise. Trump and Putin are seen in Helsinki in July 2018

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a Hwasong-12 missile in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency in September 2017. Trump reportedly said Putin convinced him that Kim was not capable of hitting the U.S. with missiles

'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 and reassigned or fired that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace,' said McCabe, who is promoting a book to be released next week, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.

McCabe says Trump's own comments served as adequate basis for both investigations.

He says Trump's request of Comey to drop the investigation of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russians, could constitute obstruction of justice.

McCabe's book is due for release February 19

McCabe also mentioned Trump's request that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein write a memo listing the reasons for firing Comey.

The former FBI official revealed to CBS that Trump also asked Rosenstein: 'Make sure you put Russia in the memo.'

Rosenstein refused to do so. McCabe says that Trump wanted Rosenstein to 'give him cover' to fire Comey by citing the Russia investigation in the memo, which could be construed as an attempt by the president to interfere with the probe.

Trump then told Lester Holt of NBC that the Russia investigation was one of the main reasons he fired Comey.

In an Oval Office meeting with top Russian officials, Trump repeated this assertion.

'I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job,' Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office on May 10, 2017.

'I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.' 

'Put together, these circumstances were articulable facts that indicated that a crime may have been committed,' McCabe told 60 Minutes. 

'The president may have been engaged in obstruction of justice in the firing of Jim Comey.' 

McCabe made a series of stunning revelations during his interview, which aired Sunday on CBS. 

McCabe also said he believed Trump may have obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey in May 2017

In May 2017, Trump told Lester Holt of NBC News that the Russia investigation was the main reason he fired Comey

On May 10, 2017, the day after Comey was fired, Trump (far left) hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (second from left) and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak (fourth from left). Trump said firing Comey relieved 'great pressure because of Russia'

McCabe said in the interview that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein broached the idea of using the Constitution to oust Trump, saying the Justice Department official 'discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort.'

McCabe said Rosenstein was discussing 'counting votes or possible votes' to invoke the Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows Cabinet members to seek the removal of a president if they conclude that he or she is mentally unfit.

Though McCabe wouldn't confirm that Rosenstein was plotting to get rid of Trump, he said: '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.'

The Justice Department issued a statement Thursday that did not deny the conversation but that said Rosenstein believes 'there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was (he) in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment.'

CBS News posted the excerpt of its interview on Friday after McCabe issued a statement saying comments of his on the subject had 'been taken out of context and misrepresented.' 

CBS released a story Thursday about its interview in which correspondent Scott Pelley said McCabe had confirmed a discussion about the Constitution's 25th Amendment. 

But the transcript of that section of the interview was not released until Friday, after McCabe spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz sought to downplay McCabe's involvement in any discussions about a potential removal of the president. 

McCabe said Rosenstein mentioned the possibility of a plan to approach Mike Pence, the vice president, and ask him to invoke the 25th Amendment, triggering Trump's removal from office

McCabe is the first person to confirm that the 25th Amendment came up in the meetings. 

The ex-law enforcement official was later fired himself over conversations with the media that an inspector general deemed inappropriate.

Trump has claimed that Comey, McCabe and cohorts of theirs who worked on Hillary Clinton's email case and the Russian meddling probe were 'crooked' cops, and that's why he got rid of them.

In a chapter of his new book, 'The Threat,' McCabe suggests Trump couldn't be reasoned with.

He writes in an excerpt that appeared Thursday in The Atlantic that Trump 'flew off the handle' in a call on an unsecure line the day after he fired Comey over McCabe's decision to allow the former bureau chief to hitch a ride from Los Angeles on a government plane that was flying back to Washington.

Trump and Putin's love-in: When Donald hailed Vlad's 'very powerful' denial of 2016 election meddling

President Trump publicly declared during a news conference in Helsinki last year alongside Vladimir Putin that he believed the Russian leader's denials about election meddling even though U.S. intelligence agencies disagreed

During a controversial summit in Helsinki in July of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a room full of U.S. and Russian reporters that he wanted Donald Trump to win the presidency in 2016.

Trump, meanwhile, angered American lawmakers back home when he said he believed Putin's denials of interfering in the race.

These were just two of the many revelations in a joint press conference that only fueled the spectacle of the Russia story.

'I have president Putin, he just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be,' Trump said, speaking to reporters about Russian election meddling as he stood side-by-side with the man U.S. intelligence says ordered it.

'So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,' Trump said after meeting with Putin in Helsinki.

In a bizarre press conference, Putin denied having compromising information on Trump – even as he touted his own spy skills. And Trump denied the infamous dirty dossier by saying if the dirt were real it would have come out already.

'And now to the compromising material …' Putin, a former KGB colonel responded when asked if the Russians hold compromising leverage over Trump.

'I do know how dossiers are made up,' Putin joked, referring to his past as he introduced the subject of Russian intelligence files.

But Trump was having none of it – at a press conference where he demanded someone find Hillary Clinton's deleted emails, pointed to a server associated with a House Democratic staffer, and accepted a soccer ball from Putin after congratulating the Russian team's performance at the World Cup.

'And I have to say if they had it, it would have been out long ago,' Trump interjected, referencing unverified claims in the Steele dossier about his conduct in a Moscow hotel room during the Miss Universe Pageant before he was president.

During his answer on election interference, Putin appeared to question whether truth can even be established on such a matter. 

'Who is to be believed and who is not to be believed? You can trust no one.'

Trump declared the U.S.-Russia relationship on the mend – coming off a NATO trip where he attacked traditional allies Germany and the European Union.

'Our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However that changed as of about four hours ago,' the president told a packed room of reporters.

The men met one-on-one, with no notetaker or staff, before a larger meeting with staff.

Trump raised the hot issue of Russian interference in the presidential election, both presidents confirmed, as Trump had telegraphed in advance.

Putin, addressing reporters first, referred to it as 'so-called interference.'

'I had to reiterate things I said several times,' Putin said.

'The Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal am affairs including election process,' Putin said, denying it.

A wave of condemnation by U.S. lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic parties followed Trump’s failure to warn Putin about meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. 

'Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory,' the late Senator John McCain said at the time. 

'The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate ... The summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.'

Then-Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, tweeted: 'I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful.' 

Comey was in LA giving a speech when he found out that Trump had fired him. McCabe said he decided as the acting head of the bureau that the threat posed to Comey's life was imminent enough that he should remain under federal protection.

'It was coming back anyway,' he writes of the plane. 'The president flew off the handle: That’s not right! I don’t approve of that! That’s wrong! He reiterated his point five or seven times.

'I said, I’m sorry that you disagree, sir. But it was my decision, and that’s how I decided. The president said, I want you to look into that! I thought to myself: What am I going to look into? I just told you I made that decision.' 

McCabe derides Trump in the passage for his willingness to 'comment prejudicially on criminal prosecutions' and investigations 'on ones that potentially affect him.'

'He is not just sounding a dog whistle. He is lobbying for a result. The president has stepped over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he has encountered them,' said the former law enforcement official who Trump targeted on Twitter repeatedly.   

Emphasizing his point, he said, 'Every day brings a new low, with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants.'  

Trump tore into McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, on Twitter on Thursday morning after the former law enforcement official lifted the lid on conversations within Justice to oust the sitting president.

Trump invoked McCabe's wife Jill's failed candidacy for office in Virginia, where she ran for office as a Democrat with the financial backing of an organization that is close to Hillary Clinton. 

The president suggested the connection to the former secretary of state who opposed him for the Oval Office caused McCabe to go easy on Clinton in the FBI's probe into her use of a private email and server.

Donald Trump fired back at Andrew McCabe on Twitter on Thursday morning during a block of time in which he usually does have anything on his public or private work schedule

Trump invoked McCabe's wife Jill, who ran for office as a Democrat in Virginia and lost. She had the financial backing of an organization that is close to Hillary Clinton

'Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won,' Trump wrote in two-part tweet.

He said in a second message several minutes later, 'Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' 

Trump's complaint about McCabe's wife Jill stems from her failed 2015 run for a state senate seat in Virginia.

A statewide political action committee called Common Good VA contributed $467,000 to her campaign. Hillary Clinton headlined a fundraiser for the group shortly beforehand, raising $500,000 for it.

The PAC was run at the time by Terry McAuliffe, then the governor of Virginia. McAuliffe is a longtime Bill Clinton fundraiser and former Democratic National Committee chairman.

Jill McCabe's campaign also received more than $207,000 from the Democratic Party of Virginia, over which McAuliffe exerted significant control.

Common Good VA was the largest single donor to the McCabe campaign.