After more than a year of investigations, accusations and taunting tweets from the
President of the United States, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is
breaking his silence. The most recent and serious charge he must now defend against:
a careerending
claim that he directed FBI officials to talk to a reporter about an ongoing
investigation and misled investigators about his actions. "I absolutely never misled
the inspector general in any way," McCabe said during
an hourlong interview with CNN, calling his highly public downfall the result of "a
series of attacks designed to undermine my credibility and my reputation"
including by President Donald Trump. ExFBI deputy director Andrew McCabe fired
ExFBI deputy director Andrew McCabe fired
After an FBI career spanning more than two decades and ascent to the No. 2 spot
at the bureau, McCabe was fired Friday less than two days before his official
retirement. His troubles began during the 2016 presidential campaign, when a report surfaced
that his wife accepted nearly $500,000 from the political action committee of
thenDemocratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton family ally, during a failed
bid for state senate in 2015. Though McCabe was not promoted to deputy director until
months after his wife
lost the race, he became a perennial political pi?ata for President Donald Trump on
the campaign trail given that McCabe later oversaw the FBI's investigation into
Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information. As president, Trump has
continued to hold McCabe up as Exhibit A of political favoritism infecting the FBI
when he lashes out against the Russia investigation.
READ: Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's statement on his firing
READ: Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's statement on his firing
In a blistering statement Friday night, McCabe said his firing is part of a larger
effort to discredit the FBI and the special counsel's investigation. "This attack on
my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me
personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals
more generally," McCabe said. "It is part of this Administration's ongoing war on
the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this
day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the
Special Counsel's work."
Inspector general report
Yet it is McCabe's effort to push back on that narrative of bias in October 2016 that
landed him in the crosshairs of Justice Department Inspector General Michael
Horowitz, whose office concluded that McCabe misled investigators about his
decision to authorize FBI officials to speak with the media about his role in a
separate, ongoing investigation tied to Clinton's family foundation, according to
source briefed on it. McCabe defends that move, telling CNN that he'd received word that Devlin
Barrett, then a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, was going to write an article
suggesting McCabe was slowwalking the bureau's investigation into the foundation. So,
as one of the few top FBI officials with authority to share information with the
media, McCabe said he asked other officials to speak with Barrett to "correct
factually inaccurate things" and provide more context for issues that had already
been reported publicly for months about the infighting between the Justice
Department and FBI over the case.
Embattled FBI official Andrew McCabe could lose 'a lot of money' if
fired before Sunday
Embattled FBI official Andrew McCabe could lose 'a lot of money' if fired before
Sunday
"The story (Barrett) was proposing to go with was that I personally, and more
importantly, the FBI, was subject to inappropriate influence," McCabe said. "And I
thought that would be incredibly corrosive to our credibility both externally and
internally ... To have my investigators in the field think that people at headquarters
are making decisions with DOJ officials based on political leanings would be
absolutely devastating." The inspector general's office announced its wideranging inquiry
into a number of
actions taken by top officials at the FBI and Justice Department in advance of the
2016 election over a year ago but has not publicly released any findings and CNN
has not reviewed the report on McCabe. McCabe told CNN that in December, about a day
or two after the press reported
that he had confirmed to lawmakers that his onetime boss, former FBI Director
James Comey, had, in fact, informed him of a series of hotly contested
conversations with the President last year, McCabe found out the inspector
general's office had "changed their plans" and would likely issue a report focused
exclusively on his actions. When asked if he believed there was a correlation, or
the inspector general was
unduly influenced in some way, McCabe demurred, saying: "I don't know."
"I think every time it becomes clear that I will likely play a significant role in
whatever comes of the special counsel's efforts, immediately after that I get
targeted and attacked by the President and his Twitter account, and now the IG's
approach to their own work changes immediately after my testimony gets leaked," he said.
Yet McCabe chalks up any claims that he was less than forthcoming with Justice
Department investigators about The Wall Street Journal story as a
misunderstanding. "There have been times that I now know we came away from interactions with a
different understanding as to what they had asked and what I had said," McCabe
told CNN. "And in each one of those cases, I proactively reached back to the
investigators to ensure that they understood completely my recollection of
events."
'He brought up my wife every time' McCabe also opened up about how the President
appeared fixated on his wife's
failed campaign, recalling at least four occasions in which Trump taunted him with
it as a "mistake" or "problem" and calling her a "loser." Trump raised the issue with
Comey "out of the blue," according to McCabe, saying
things "like, 'What's wrong with that deputy director of yours?' " insinuating that
he was somehow politically motivated against the President, which, McCabe says
is "absolutely not true."
"In May, when Director Comey was fired and I had my own interactions with the
President, he brought up my wife every time I ever spoke to him," McCabe told
CNN, emphasizing that he pushed back. "Of course, I disagreed with him. I don't
see my wife's decision to try to enter public life to help her community (have)
greater access to healthcare as a mistake or a problem." McCabe, who said he always
considered himself a Republican, also confirmed that
the President asked him who he voted for the day after Trump fired Comey and
McCabe stepped in as interim FBI director in May. Sessions considering whether to fire McCabe
Sessions considering whether to fire McCabe
"I didn't vote at all in 2016, and I explained to him that I did not vote in 2016
because the work that we were involved in had such political overtones that I felt
it was prudent not to take a side in an election," McCabe said. The White House did not
respond to a request for comment on their interactions. May proved to be a monumental
month for McCabe as acting FBI director, trying
as he explained it to take "affirmative steps" to ensure that the bureau's
investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election was on "solid
ground" while also briefing Congress and "working closely with the Deputy
Attorney General (Rod Rosenstein) advocating for the appointment of the special
counsel." Trump did not, however, ask McCabe to drop the Russia investigation, McCabe told
CNN. Though the President did berate him for the fact that Comey flew from
California to Washington on an FBI plane after he was fired in May.
Indeed, throughout the past year, the President's ire at McCabe only grew with a
barrage of tweets questioning why Attorney General Jeff Sessions hadn't fired him,
later followed by a suggestion McCabe was "racing the clock to retire with full
benefits." Coming full circle
McCabe stepped down abruptly in January after he says FBI Director Christopher
Wray approached him with concerns about what the inspector general had
uncovered. "(Wray) called me in on a Sunday night to tell me that he had been privy to
information from the IG's investigation, and then based on that he was going to
move me out of my position," McCabe said, explaining that he then decided to
take a leave of absence. Wray wouldn't tell him exactly what investigators found, but
reflecting back now, McCabe surmised that if the approval of his outreach to The Wall Street Journal
was the reason for his ouster, it would be somewhat hypocritical. "In December, I had a
long conversation with the editor of a major national
newspaper at Chris Wray's request, and engaged with this editor in an effort to get
them to back off a story that we thought would be harmful to our operational
equities," McCabe said. "I was then removed from my position in January for
having done the same thing in October 2016."