美国国家公共电台 NPR Andrew McCabe, Ex-FBI Deputy, Describes 'Remarkable' Number Of Trump-Russia Contacts

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

More than 20 years ago, Andrew McCabe was a newly hired agent at the FBI. He investigated Russian organized crime groups in New York. Decades later, as acting 1 FBI director, his investigations 3 centered on a similar theme.

ANDREW MCCABE: The fact that I kind of finished my career on the same footing that I began it - looking at the pernicious influence of Russian money on American life and now, indeed, American politics - is just kind of a framing device that I couldn't have thought up if I was writing it in a novel.

MARTIN: Andrew McCabe has written a memoir 4 of his experience. It's titled "The Threat," and a lot of it focuses on his final years at the FBI. He was deputy director of the agency under James Comey. He was present when Comey made controversial decisions about the investigation 2 into Hillary Clinton's emails. He was also involved as the agency investigated Russia's involvement in President Trump 5's election. And he told Steve Inskeep what happened next.

STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE 6: In 2017, President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. McCabe became acting director. And he talked of that experience with two of us, meeting with NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson and me in our studios. He recalled that after Comey's firing, he was quickly summoned to the White House.

Did the president, in your mind, ask you for loyalty 7 in the way we have heard that he asked James Comey for loyalty?

MCCABE: Not in the exact way that he asked James Comey. He asked Director Comey straight up, you know, I need somebody who's loyal. And so he did not use those words with me. But what he said to me - I mean, seconds after walking into the office and shaking his hand - he said, I heard you were a part of the resistance. You were one of those people who didn't agree with Director Comey and the decisions he made.

And I said, no sir, that's not true. I said, I've worked very closely with Jim Comey. I made all of those decisions last summer and in the Clinton case with Jim, and so I - that's not true. It was clearly not the answer he was looking for.

INSKEEP: Do you think that was a leading question, he was hoping that you would pledge loyalty in some way?

MCCABE: I - the way I see it now, Steve, I think that was his kind of saying, are you with us or are you against us? Are you on my team or are you on the other team? And he came back to that theme the next morning in our phone call, the next afternoon in our second meeting - that was just incredibly troubling.

CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Mr. McCabe, your description of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during this period is anything but cool in the book. You talk about him being glassy eyed and in a panic at one point. What, in your assessment 8, was going through Rod Rosenstein's mind? And what did that tell you about the state of affairs in the country?

MCCABE: Well, I can't tell you what was in Rod's mind, but I can tell you that it was such an incredibly tumultuous time. I can't overstress the tension and the confusion and just how upside down the world was for all of us at that moment.

INSKEEP: This was the period in which there were people in the Justice Department meeting to discuss whether the 25th Amendment 9 should be invoked 10?

MCCABE: Well, I don't know about that, Steve. The 25th Amendment was something that Rod brought up with me, in front of others, in a few of these meetings. He mentioned it as a way of, I think, commenting on, like, one - this is, you know, something that potentially could be considered. I just want to be clear though, at no time did I ever perceive that there was a legitimate 11 effort underway by Rod or anybody else to remove the president under the 25th Amendment or in any other way.

JOHNSON: What about wearing a wire?

MCCABE: The comments about wearing the wire Rod raised with me, again, multiple times in front of other people. I did not perceive them at any moment to be made in jest or as a joke or sarcastically 12. He raised it as a way that we could potentially collect evidence about the president's intent in firing Jim Comey.

INSKEEP: This was wearing - having people wear a wire while speaking with the president of the United States?

MCCABE: Not people...

INSKEEP: Rosenstein himself.

MCCABE: ...Rosenstein himself wearing a wire. I was taken aback by the offer. I told him that I would consider it. I would discuss it with the investigative team, and I'd let him know. I did talk to my attorneys back at FBI headquarters about it. We all agreed it was a horrible idea, and it was not something that we would pursue.

So while the deputy attorney general says he never authorized 13 anyone to wear a wire, that is true. He never authorized it because we never asked him for that authorization 14.

INSKEEP: Meaning that his seeming denial of this story is not actually a denial. You don't think he denied anything you just said?

MCCABE: I don't think he can.

INSKEEP: Of the many acts that we could explore during your time as acting director, there is an occasion you describe in which agents are sent to brief the president on a matter relating to Russia. There were a couple of Russian dachas or houses that had been closed in the United States - diplomatic facilities that had supposedly been used for espionage 15. There was a question about whether to reopen them. You sent some guys over to say what they knew. What happened in that briefing?

MCCABE: I relate that briefing in the book because I think it's such a clear example of the challenge of imparting intelligence to this president. We sent a briefer - I sent a briefer and a senior executive over to the White House to participate in that briefing. What I found out from that senior executive when they returned to FBI headquarters to let me know how things had gone was that they had gone pretty much completely off the rails from the very beginning. The president kind of went off on a - a diatribe 16 on completely unrelated issues...

INSKEEP: Changed the subject to North Korea, if I'm not mistaken.

MCCABE: He did. He did. He changed the subject to North Korea and opined - well, he shared his belief that North Korea had not actually launched the missiles they had recently launched before that briefing - didn't believe they had the capacity to do so, and shared that he thought that because he had been told that by Vladimir Putin.

INSKEEP: Vladimir Putin told him that U.S. intelligence was wrong, it was all a hoax 17?

MCCABE: Well, all I can tell you is that's what he told the people at the briefing.

INSKEEP: Do you have any idea how it was that President Putin imparted that information to President Trump?

MCCABE: I do not. I do know that the briefers from other intelligence agencies shared with the president - on that occasion - that that assessment was contrary to all of our intelligence. And he - that's when he mentioned that he believed what Putin had to say.

INSKEEP: What did you think about when you learned this?

MCCABE: I just - it's a head-spinning moment, Steve. But this is - this is beyond just getting the attention of a - of a busy and maybe distracted president. This is, how do we impart wisdom and knowledge and the best of our intelligence assessments 18 to someone who chooses to believe our adversaries 19 over our intelligence professionals?

INSKEEP: Andrew McCabe, former deputy director and acting director of the FBI. He's written a book about his experience. He was fired from his job, accused of lacking candor 20 about interactions with the media. And elsewhere in today's program, we question McCabe about the investigation into his actions.