Senators may investigate 'coup' to remove Donald Trump from office

An investigation may take place into claims senior officials discussed whether Donald Trump could be removed from office.

Former acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, made the claim during an interview with CBS News.

Mr McCabe, who was later sacked, described a conversation in which Rod Rosenstein, the current deputy attorney general, had raised the idea of invoking the US Constitution's 25th Amendment.

Section 4 of the amendment says that in the event a president is incapacitated or unwilling to discharge his duties, the vice president and a "majority" of cabinet members can declare the president incapable.

Mr Rosenstein has consistently denied discussing the 25th amendment.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, said that, if true, the discussion amounted to an attempt at a "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," he told CBS's Face The Nation.

"[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."

Referring to Mr Graham's comments, Mr Trump tweeted: "Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged.

"He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught.....

"There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous 'insurance policy' in full action!"

Mr McCabe was the person who ordered the FBI investigations into Mr Trump.

He was fired from the FBI last year after being accused of misleading investigators during a probe into a press leak.

Mr McCabe has denied intentionally lying and said on Sunday he believes his sacking was politically motivated.

He became acting director after the previous director James Comey was, himself, fired by Donald Trump in 2017.

CBS says it is due to broadcast more of the interview on Monday night in which Mr McCabe will say that, in the days that followed the sacking of Mr Comey, law enforcement officials discussed whether to secretly record a conversation with the president.

Mr McCabe is the first person present in those meetings to describe them publicly, the broadcaster says.

The acting director said he felt he had no choice but to launch investigations into Mr Trump.

He said he needed to find out if Mr Trump fired Mr Comey to impede the investigation into whether Russia interfered with the election and, if he had, whether Mr Trump was acting on behalf of the Russian government.

CBS quoted him as saying: "There were a number of things that caused us to believe that we had... adequate reason... to open the investigation.

"The president had been speaking in a derogatory way about our investigative efforts for weeks, describing it as a witch hunt, publicly undermining the effort of the investigation.

"The president had gone to Jim Comey and specifically asked him to discontinue the investigation of Mike Flynn which was a part of our Russia case.

"The president, then, fired the director. In the firing of the director, the president specifically asked Rod Rosenstein to write the memo justifying the firing and told Rod to include Russia in the memo. Rod, of course, did not do that.

"Put together, these circumstances were articulable facts that indicated that a crime may have been committed. The president may have been engaged in obstruction of justice in the firing of Jim Comey."