Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, left, and then-acting FBI director Andrew
McCabe during a news conference to announce significant law
enforcement actions on July 13, 2017, at the Justice Department
in Washington, D.C.
Alex Wong/Getty
Images
President Donald Trump in 2017 reportedly had a meeting
with then-acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and asked who he
voted for in the 2016 US presidential election.
McCabe reportedly found the question "disturbing,"
according to one former official.
Trump reportedly had a second meeting with McCabe to
interview him for the FBI director role, but had no interest in
hiring him.
President Donald Trump reportedly had a meeting in the Oval
Office with then-acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and posed a
question McCabe found "disturbing," according to one former
official cited in a Washington Post report on Tuesday.
Trump reportedly asked McCabe who he voted for in the 2016 US
presidential election, according to current and former officials
in the report.
The meeting, held after former FBI director James Comey's firing
in May, initially appeared to be an introductory meet-and-greet,
until Trump began making pointed remarks about McCabe's wife's
political aspirations. Dr. Jill McCabe, who ran as a Democrat for
a Senate seat in Virginia, and her campaign received $675,000 in
donations from the Virginia Democratic Party and a super PAC
operated by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was a supporter of
Hillary Clinton, Trump's 2016 rival.
Although Trump had reservations about McCabe temporarily running
the FBI in Comey's absence, he reportedly agreed to it because
"there were no immediate better choices," a White House official
said to The Post.
Trump eventually had another meeting in the Oval Office where he
interviewed McCabe for the director position. The second meeting
was reportedly brief, and Trump is believed to have had no
intention of selecting McCabe for the position.
Trump has since railed against McCabe and his
wife on Twitter, calling McCabe a "Comey friend" and accusing him
of political bias.
Trump would eventually nominate Christopher Wray as the new FBI
director. Wray was confirmed by the Senate in August. More
recently, he has reportedly threatened to resign after being
pressured by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire McCabe,
according three sources cited in an Axios report Monday.
The report follows other news of Sessions' pressure on Wray and
former FBI general counsel James Baker, ostensibly to make way
for a "fresh start" at the FBI.
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