By Steve Neavling
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe slammed special counsel John H. Durham’s investigation into Donald Trump’s connections with Russia, claiming it was “illegitimate” and “a political errand.”
“We knew from the very beginning that this was never a legitimate investigation,” McCabe told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “This was a political errand to exact some retribution on Donald Trump’s perceived enemies and the FBI.”
McCabe said Durham’s 300-plus page report uncovered “absolutely nothing new.”
“I stand by the investigative decisions that we made to open the investigation first on the Trump campaign and then the possibility that the Russians were trying to influence it and later on Donald Trump himself,” McCabe said.
The former FBI deputy director admitted the bureau made mistakes when it obtained continued surveillance on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The mistakes, he said, “were regrettable and should never have happened.”
“Had I known about the mistakes in the packages, I would never have signed those applications and shame on us for not knowing,” McCabe said.
McCabe was fired in March 2018 by Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions. In 2021, he settled a lawsuit against the DOJ that restored his full pension.
Earlier this week, Durham concluded the bureau did not have a good reason to open an investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, saying it was based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.”
The FBI responded to the report, issuing a statement: “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.”
