Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said Tuesday that no congressional leaders pushed back against the counterintelligence and obstruction of justice investigations launched against President Trump.
Mr. McCabe told NBC’s “Today” show that he briefed the “Gang of Eight,” the group of top congressional leaders from both parties — which would have included former Speaker Paul D. Ryan and current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — about the investigations.
“That’s the important part here,” Mr. McCabe said. “No one objected — not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds and not based on the facts.”
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” to promote his new book “The Threat,” Mr. McCabe revealed that he ordered the two investigations into Mr. Trump because of concerns that the president won the election with Russia’s help.
Mr. McCabe claimed on Tuesday that investigators has several reasons to suggest there was a national security concern, and one theory was that Mr. Trump could be in cahoots with the Russian government.
The former acting FBI director, who was later fired, said it was “entirely possible” that the president is a threat to national security and is complicating the job of U.S. intelligence agencies.
In another interview Tuesday, Mr. McCabe told the panelists on ABC’s “The View” that he has spoken with special counsel Robert Mueller.
“The information I have, including the memos that I wrote, I’ve given all that to the special counsel team,” he said.
Mr. Mueller is leading the Russia collusion and obstruction of justice probes into President Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign, investigations that Mr. McCabe launched after his predecessor James B. Comey was fired from the FBI.
For his part, Mr. Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to deny one of Mr. McCabe’s more
President Trump on Tuesday denied that he called Jill McCabe, Mr. McCabe’s wife, “a loser.”
“I never said anything bad about Andrew McCabe’s wife other than she (they) should not have taken large amounts of campaign money from a Crooked Hillary source when Clinton was under investigation by the FBI,” Mr. Trump said in a tweet.
“I never called his wife a loser to him (another McCabe made up lie)!” the tweet continued.
In media appearances and in his new book, Mr. McCabe charges that the president asked him about Mrs. McCabe’s unsuccessful bid for the Virginia state Senate in 2015.
Mr. McCabe recalled a conversation with the president that occurred just after Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey.
The president asked about his wife’s Virginia state Senate campaign and he responded that “it’s tough to lose anything” and his wife was focusing on her career, Mr. McCabe claims in his new book.
“And [Mr. Trump] said, ’Ask her what it is like to lose. It must be tough to be a loser,’” Mr. McCabe said Sunday in an interview with 60 Minutes.
“No man wants to hear anyone call his wife a loser, most of all me,” Mr. McCabe continued describing the president’s comment as “bullying.”
• Gabriella Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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