Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe appeared on CNN to defend himself as he faces a possible indictment for misleading investigators.
Confronted with a clip of GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy affirming he will be indicted, McCabe struck a defiant tone and said he will not strike a deal with the Justice Department if one is offered.
“Absolutely not under any circumstances,” he said. “I have said to you, I said from the very beginning, I absolutely reject that report because I never intentionally misled anyone about anything, and I will not stand up and claim that I’ve done something that I didn’t do. So it won’t happen.”
It was McCabe’s first interview addressing the allegations since being hired by CNN nearly a month ago as a paid contributor. He has been conspicuously absent from the air ever since, only days after being hired, it was reported federal prosecutors were close to making a final decision on whether to indict McCabe.
The hiring of McCabe earned CNN a wave of condemnation from conservatives, who already view the cable news network as having a left-leaning, anti-Trump bias. Some of McCabe’s new colleagues at CNN are also dismayed. “It’s hard to see the justification for hiring him initially since it was publicly documented he’s, best case, a liar,” one on-air personality told Fox News. “How will CNN handle it if he’s also soon indicted?”
Seemingly aware of the sensitive situation, host Chris Cuomo, who interviewed McCabe on Tuesday, noted, “I do you no favors here if I don’t ask you what matters to people.” Cuomo peppered McCabe with uncomfortable questions, challenging his colleague to address his “problem” and explain “why you gave answers that were wrong at best and misleading by their theory.”
McCabe said he “absolutely” rejects the premise that he intentionally lied and said he corrected the record when he thought his original answers “may have been inaccurate or mistaken.”
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe in March 2018, less than two days before he was set to retire. This followed Michael Horowitz, DOJ’s inspector general, releasing a report detailing instances where McCabe “lacked candor” with then-FBI Director James Comey and investigators and concluded McCabe greenlighted disclosures to the media of sensitive information on an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation “to make himself look good.”
Earlier this month the Justice Department rejected McCabe’s last-ditch appeal to avoid criminal charges, but his legal team remains defiant, arguing that Trump’s personal attacks on McCabe has made a fair prosecution an “impossibility.” Among his many barrages, Trump has accused McCabe, who authorized the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, of being involved in an “illegal and treasonous” plot against him.
Getting to the heart of the issue McCabe faces, even if he is not charged, Cuomo asked McCabe about the perception that somehow he is above the law: a criticism levied against the likes of Hillary Clinton and Comey, who were admonished for some of their decisions and actions while in government but never charged.
“You’re going after the president, the Democrats, they would argue the FBI, that he lacked candor also, that he would not tell the truth, he wouldn’t answer questions and you have to go after people that way. Why doesn’t that apply to you?” Cuomo said.
“The law applies to me in the same way it does to every other American and certainly including the president as well,” McCabe said. “The inspector general made a referral to the U.S. Attorney’s office. They have investigated, I assume thoroughly. We haven’t heard what the status of that investigation is. As I said, if they follow the facts and they follow the law, I am confident that nothing will come of it.”
