On your w2 that could protect your refund. And the one mistake made by so many people. And on the eve of the super bowl, why tom brady suddenly cut an interview short. What was said beforehand . Good evening, and its great to have you with us to start another week here. And we begin tonight with the sudden departure of fbi Deputy Director Andrew Mccabe, the number two man at the fbi, and a frequent target of the president s criticism. Mccabe stepped in temporarily when fbi director james comey was fired, defending the scope of the fbis russia investigation. And defending james comey, saying the rank and file had not lost confidence in him. Tonight, the white house answering questions, did the President Pressure the Justice Department in any way to push mccabe out . Abcs Senior Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas leading us off. Reporter tonight, the number two at the fbi Stepping Down, following months of blistering attacks from President Trump. Vote for . Mccabes answer . I did not vo
He has a pattern. What the pattern we have from donald trump is a lot of times hell lie about something that happens and hell do what he wants to do. All of this im convinced symone ive convinced her. I think you made a lot of progress with symone. All that matters, what will this mean if the president does meet with Special Counsel and asked about this . If he gives answers hes been giving to the media and others, it may not go well. Our coverage continues right now, cnn tonight with don lemon. This is cnn Breaking News. It is bombshell Breaking News on the Russia Investigation, really. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. This is hugely significant. The president , President Trump ordered Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel heading up the Russia Investigation fired this past june. And the only thing that stopped him was when his own White House Counsel Don Mcgahn threatened to quit rather than carry out the order. This story was first reported by
the rosenstein firing, the rosenstein t
vote for? mccabe s answer? i did not vote. did you ask mccabe who he voted for? did you ask him that? i don t think so. you don t think you did? no, i don t think i did. you did not? i don t know what s the big deal with that. reporter: the news of mccabe s departure comes a week after we learned sessions was putting pressure on christopher wray, the current fbi director, to fire mccabe. something wray refused to do. and days after reports that president trump wanted to fire special counsel robert mueller last june. the white house was pressed today is the president applying pressure on his attorney general and on the justice department to get rid of certain people? the only thing that the president has applied pressure to is to make sure we get this resolved so that you guys and everyone else can focus on the things that americans actually care about. so, let s get to pierre thomas, live outside the fbi tonight. and pierre, you have new reporting about why mccabe s
and seems to be joe manchin was on meet the press this morning with my colleague chuck todd and essentially said, let s see what happens with that before we make any judgments about what to do about mueller. yeah. i mean, if i were rosenstein, i d be the most frustrated person in washington, d.c. he kind of got set up as the fall guy for firing director comey. he was the one putting together the memos for justifications together. he then is the one who appoints the special counsel. he makes the best choice possible of any fbi director mueller is your best choice. now he s being twisted and turned to threaten to fire. the washington post story said the democrat from baltimore, he was appointed under bush. and so i think it s got to be very frustrating to feel this constant influence, this undue influence being pushed on the justice department when he seems to be really trying to do the right thing and follow through on the investigation and the special counsel he appointed. i wa
deliberate undermining of the mueller the past couple of months i think i m starting to fall into that camp because if we don t do something before, trying to do something afterwards if there is a firing, and then we try to reestablish the office, i think that would be quite difficult. and maybe it is appropriate now. and this is a change of position for me, but based upon events of the last several months, and particularly of this last week, i don t know all the facts. you know, all we have is that one story to go on. but clearly but, you know, the contrary fact is the president keeps saying, i m not going to fire him. his counsel says he s not going to fire him. i think it would be a huge mistake if he did. if he did and thought he was putting this thing to bed, it would be just the opposite because if mueller finishes his investigation and there s nothing there, he s exonerated, it s over, he can move on. if he fires mueller and it s still perking around, this thing is going to ha