[MEDIAite] Former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe sat down with 60 Minutes host Scott Pelley for his first public interview since getting unceremoniously fired by the Trump administration."There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment," Pelley said of his conversations McCabe.
A short clip of entire 60 Minutes segment aired Wednesday on CBS Morning, but the more interesting part came in the panel discussion afterward, in which Pelley described what he found to be the "most illuminating and surprising thing" they discussed: the eight days that followed President Donald Trump's firing of then FBI Director James Comey.
Pelley shared how McCabe explained what was happening behind the scenes at the highest levels of the FBI and Department of Justice in which serious discussions of invoking the 25th amendment to remove a sitting president.
"They were counting noses" Pelley explained, adding "Not asking cabinet members whether they would vote for or against removing the president. But they were speculating, this person would be with us. That person would not be, and they were counting noses in that effort."
McCabe also told of how he feared his immediate firing and hurried to start an investigation so that even if he was dismissed, an investigation would continue.
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, or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace." McCabe said.
"I wanted to make sure that our case was on solid ground and if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they made that decision," McCabe added.
McCabe is a life-long civil servant who was fired just days before he reached his full pension-earning retirement term. He has also received voluminous criticism from right-of-center opinion media and conservative politicians who believe that he is a significant player in the "deep state" conspiracy that has polluted airwaves for the past two and a half years.