On North Korea’s nuclear power, Trump said he only trusted Putin, reveals ex-FBI acting chief

Washington, Feb 18: Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Andrew McCabe has claimed that US President Donald Trump claimed that he believed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and not the country's intelligence services over the nuclear capabilities of North Korea. McCabe served as the acting director-general of the FBI after Trump fired James Comey in May 2017.

On Sunday, February 17, McCabe told the CBS 60 Minutes programme that Trump would not accept information he was being given to by home-based agencies over North Korea, the leader of which he is set to meet for second summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, later this month.

“I don’t care. I believe Putin,” Pres Trump allegedly said, rejecting U.S. intelligence regarding North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile capability. McCabe says he heard this from an FBI official who was at the meeting with POTUS. https://t.co/9zmoxrYNjm pic.twitter.com/lo0g9VOMAG

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 18, 2019

The former acting director also gave details about one meeting in which he himself was not present but was informed about later, the journal.ie said in a report.

"The president launched into several unrelated diatribes. One of those was commenting on the recent missile launches by the government of North Korea," he said.

Trump said he did not believe that North Korea possessed the capacity to hit the US with ballistic missiles and also because he was also told by Putin that they did not possess it.

When the intelligence officials tried to convince the maverick president about the US's own reports, he reportedly said that he didn't care but only believed Putin's words.

McCabe said he learned about it from an FBI official and that he was "shocked" to hear it from the president of the US and called it "an unwillingness to learn".

The former FBI top official also said that a "crime may have been committed" when Trump fired the agency's head and tried to publicly undermine a probe into the alleged links his campaign had with Russia.