WASHINGTON: The chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee has vowed to get to the bottom of allegations that discussions were held in 2017 on removing President Donald Trump from office.
Senator Lindsey Graham pledged to issue subpoenas “if that’s what it takes”.
Ex-acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe has said deputy US attorney general Rod Rosenstein discussed the numbers needed to invoke the 25th Amendment. Mr Rosenstein has in the past denied discussing invoking the clause. The 25th Amendment provides for the removal of a president if deemed unfit. Mr Graham’s pledge comes afteráMr McCabe appeared on the 60 Minutes show on CBS in the US on Sunday.
The White House saidáMr McCabe, who was fired last year for allegedly lying to government investigators, had “no credibility”.
The allegations that Mr Rosenstein discussed invoking the amendment to oust Mr Trump were first reported last year by the New York Times, which cited anonymous sources.
However, Mr McCabe’s quotes are the first to be made on the record from someone present at the meeting where the alleged comments were reportedly made.
“The discussion of the 25th Amendment was simply [that] 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,” Mr McCabe said.
He said that Mr Rosenstein was openly “counting votes, or possible votes”.
“The deputy attorney general was definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time.”
“To be fair, it was an unbelievably stressful time… it was really something that he kind of threw out in a very frenzied chaotic conversation about where we were and what we needed to do next.” Mr Rosenstein has previously strongly denied discussing invoking the constitutional clauseáto oust Mr Trump, saying there was “no basis” to invoking the amendment.
However, Senator Graham said using the 25th Amendment would have amounted to “an administrative coup”.
