Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe condemned the Justice Department for dropping criminal charges against Michael Flynn, saying it was “pure politics designed to please the president.”
President Trump’s former national security adviser pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, but later declared his innocence and argued he was set up by the FBI.
In moving to drop the charges on Thursday, the Justice Department said in a court filing that after reviewing newly disclosed materials, it agreed with Flynn’s attorneys that his interview with the FBI should never have taken place because his conversations with the Russian envoy were “entirely appropriate.”
McCabe denied the assertion that the bureau’s interview with Flynn, in which he lied to the FBI, “was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn.”
“The FBI was obligated to interview him to better understand why he was talking to Russian officials. During the interview, he lied about the substance of his conversations with those officials. His lies added to our concerns about his relationship with the Russian government. Later, under oath in Federal Court, he twice admitted to lying to the FBI,” McCabe said in a statement Thursday.
“The Department’s position that the FBI had no reason to interview Mr. Flynn pursuant to its counterintelligence investigation is patently false, and ignores the considerable national security risk his contacts raised. Moreover, the Department’s position contradicts the findings by both the Special Counsel and the Office of the Inspector General,” he added. “Today’s move by the Justice Department has nothing to do with the facts or the law — it is pure politics designed to please the president.”
McCabe was fired in early 2018 and is now suing the Justice Department for wrongful termination, seeking to regain his job and back pay and claiming that Trump was behind the firing.
The Justice Department announced in February that McCabe would not be charged in an investigation into whether he lied to investigators about a media leak two years ago.
