Andrew McCabe says he -- not Robert Mueller -- removed former FBI agent Peter Strzok from Russia probe

Former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe on Tuesday said that he was the one who removed former FBI agent Peter Strzok from participating in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

As revealed by a newly released congressional transcript obtained Politico, McCabe told members of Congress in 2017 that he made the call to pull Strzok from the probe after learning of text messages he sent that made disparaging comments about President Donald Trump.

McCabe told lawmakers in 2017 that he decided to yank Strzok off the investigation on the same day he learned about his controversial text messages on July 27 of the same year.

"I made the decision to remove him from the investigation that evening," he said. "I came back from my meeting with the inspector general. I met with a very small group of my fellow leaders. We discussed Peter's reassignment, and we discussed where we would place him."