Former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who had been deeply involved in the Russia probe investigation, Friday accused the Department of Justice of having "completely capitulated to the political desires" of President Donald Trump by dropping its charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
"They have gone so far as to deny the considerable national security concern that my colleagues and I had about Michael Flynn in 2016," McCabe, now a CNN contributor, said on the network's "New Day."
We investigated Mr. Flynn because he had very significant well-known, high-level contacts within the Russian government. By the end of December, we hadn't found very much new until, of course, we stumbled across absolutely untraceable evidence. Very simply, he was interviewed about those contacts and given an opportunity to explain why he was talking to the Russians. He lied during that interview. That's what he admitted to doing."
The DOJ filing says that Flynn admitted he lied, but it was tied to an unjustified counterintelligence investigation being done by the FBI and McCabe, who had been ex-FBI Director James Comey's deputy director, called that "absolutely false" and said the claim "blatantly" ignored the "significant national security concern that we had at that time."
"The American people have the right to have an election in which the person they choose is elected to office, not the person the Russian government wants," said McCabe.
Meanwhile, the "conservative media' has been obsessed with finding the indication of a setup with Flynn for several years, but that did not happen, McCabe insisted, including with handwritten notes speculating whether they should have gotten Flynn to lie.
"We strategize about interviews every day,' he said. "When we sit down with a terrorist, we think about will they admit to the crimes we think they have committed or will they lie about known associations? If they lie, will that give us additional leverage to apply in our investigation? That's exactly what happened."
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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