FBI
deputy director Andrew McCabe.
Alex
Brandon/AP
President Donald Trump reportedly asked the deputy FBI
director Andrew McCabe who he voted for during an Oval Office
meeting last year.
The question came after McCabe became the FBI's acting
director following James Comey's firing in May. McCabe told
Trump he did not vote in the 2016 election.
The meeting between Trump and McCabe resembled the
one-on-one time that the president spent with Comey after his
inauguration, during which Trump asked Comey for his loyalty
and requested that the FBI back off of his then-national
security adviser Michael Flynn, who the FBI was
investigating.
During congressional testimony Comey gave last June, he
said he did not oblige the president's request for
loyalty.
The revelations could add another wrinkle to the
federal investigation of ties between Trump associates and
Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Following former FBI director James Comey's ouster in May,
President Donald Trump reportedly met with then-acting director
Andrew McCabe and asked him who he voted for during the 2016 US
presidential election, current and former officials cited by the
Washington Post said in a
report published on Tuesday.
McCabe, who reportedly said he did not vote in the election that
year, found the question to be "disturbing," according to one
former official.
Trump and McCabe later met again in the Oval Office, where the
president interviewed McCabe for the role of FBI director, though
The Post notes that Trump had no intention to hire McCabe for the
job, due in part to his anger over McCabe's wife's failed run for
Senate in Virginia.
Trump accused Dr. Jill McCabe, who ran as a Democrat, of taking
donations from Hillary Clinton. The campaign donations in
question actually came from the Virginia Democratic Party and a
super PAC operated by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is a
Clinton supporter. Jill McCabe received no donations from Clinton
herself.
Hallmarks of the Trump-Comey meeting
The conversation between Trump and McCabe loosely resembled the
one-on-one time the president spent with James Comey shortly
after taking office. He summoned Comey to the White House for a
private dinner, during which
he asked Comey for his loyalty.
Comey, who at the time was leading the Russia investigation,
later said he was baffled by the request, but said he did not
oblige.
Comey said Trump also asked him to "let go" of the bureau's
investigation of his then-national security adviser Michael
Flynn.
During congressional testimony last year, Comey said he recorded
memos of the private meetings with Trump out of concern for the
nature of the encounters.
Railing against law and order
Though Trump ran his 2016 presidential campaign on a "law and
order" platform, he has repeatedly castigated top law-enforcement
officials since taking office.
The interactions between McCabe and Trump, just like those
previous encounters with Comey, are also part of a broader effort
in which Trump has apparently sought to wrangle top
law-enforcement officials who have proximity to the Russia
investigation.
During his first year as president, Trump publicly rankled
Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the
Russia probe.
He taunted McCabe on social media, and scolded White House
general counsel Don McGahn for not intervening in the
investigation.
More recently, Sessions has pressured the Trump-appointed FBI
director Christopher Wray to remove McCabe. Political observers
have speculated that Sessions was acting on Trump's wishes to
shake up the FBI.
Wray reportedly threatened to resign over that.
Some of Trump's allies in Congress and in the media have joined
in the president's calls for a counter investigation. Those
demands grew louder after it was revealed that an agent who was
ousted from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation had
exchanged more than 50,000 text messages with an FBI lawyer.
Some of those messages
expressed strong opposition to Trump.
A new wrinkle for Robert Mueller
The totality of Trump's public and private engagement with top
officials at the FBI
and Justice Department has prompted Mueller to look into
whether Trump obstructed justice, a matter that could spell
trouble for Trump.
The president has not been formally accused of a crime and he has
insisted he committed no wrongdoing.
But his sustained public airing of grievances against the Russia
probe and his reported encounters with McCabe, Comey, Sessions,
and others, have called into question his broader motives
surrounding the investigation, which he has previously called a
"witch hunt," and described as a "cloud" over his presidency.
According to a Washington Post
report published on Tuesday, Trump's attorneys are
negotiating terms for a possible interview between the president
and Mueller, during which the special counsel is expected to seek
information about the events that led up to Comey's firing and
Michael Flynn's resignation.
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