Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, condemned former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Tuesday after he openly discussed a conversation he had with congressional leaders about the bureau’s investigation into President Trump.
“Andy McCabe was fired from the FBI for lying and leaking, and many of the stories he’s telling on his book tour are transparently self-serving. Although I cannot comment on the content of Gang of Eight briefings, it’s preposterous to deny that the FBI was investigating Donald Trump from the moment it opened its investigation in mid-2016,” Nunes, R-Calif., said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner.
McCabe told NBC on Tuesday morning he and other FBI officials briefed the so-called Gang of Eight, a bipartisan group of lawmakers comprising of party and intelligence committee leaders, the bureau had opened a counterintelligence inquiry into Trump after he dismissed FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
“No one objected, not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds, and not based on the facts,” McCabe said Tuesday of the Gang of Eight.
The 21-year FBI veteran is currently promoting his memoir, The Threat, and has detailed his experience with the bureau, the investigation into Trump, and his ouster in March 2018 after an internal watchdog found he had misled investigators about his role in a leak to the media.
Trump has yet to respond to McCabe’s claim about the Gang of Eight, and it remains an open question whether it will mark a deterioration in relations between the White House and congressional Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declined to talk about whether he was concerned about Trump reacting with wrath to the GOP’s silence in relation to the FBI’s investigations into him. “We do not comment on or discuss the Leader’s work as it relates to the Gang of Eight and other classified issues,” a McConnell spokesman told the Washington Examiner.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., also rebuffed the Washington Examiner’s inquiries, citing Gang of Eight matters.
