Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said on Tuesday that he informed congressional leaders, including GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, that the agency was investigating President Trump and they raised no objections.
McCabe said he briefed the “Gang of Eight,” the bipartisan group of top House and Senate members, about the counterintelligence probe after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
“The purpose of the briefing was to let our congressional leadership know exactly what we’d been doing,” McCabe told NBC’s “Today” show. “Opening a case of this nature, not something that an FBI director, not something that an acting FBI director would by yourself.”
He said he discussed the recommendation that came from his FBI team with the agency’s lawyers, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and members of Congress.
“Did anyone object?” asked host Savannah Guthrie.
“That’s the important part, Savannah, no one objected,” he said. “Not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds, not based on the facts.”
McCabe said Trump’s comments about the Russia collusion probe raised red flags among him and other members of the FBI.
“The president in our view had gone to extreme measures to potentially impact, negatively impact, possibly turn off our investigation of Russian meddling into the election and Russian coordination with his campaign,” McCabe said.
He noted that Trump had referred to the Russia probe as a “witch hunt” and a “hoax” and had asked Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn, then the president’s national security adviser.
At that point, he said, it moved beyond obstruction of justice.
“If you believe the president might have obstructed justice for the purpose of ending our investigation into Russia, you have to ask yourself why. Why would any president of the United States not want the FBI to get to the bottom of Russian interference in our election?”
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign and is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe last March after an internal investigation revealed McCabe had “lacked candor” when interviewed about leaking sensitive information to the media.
Trump has called McCabe’s claims made during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday “treasonous” and “illegal.”
McCabe said the Justice Department became so concerned over Trump’s behavior at the time he fired Comey that officials had discussed removing him through the 25th Amendment.
His book, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” hit bookshelves on Tuesday.