Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe defended the agency's tactics used against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.) when they interviewed him while he was serving as President Trump's national security adviser in 2017. Despite Flynn initially pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday they are dropping its case against him.
The dropped case came shortly after Brandon Van Grack moved to withdraw from the DOJ's case after he and his team had been accused of prosecutorial misconduct following the release of new FBI documents providing insight to their plans on their interview with Flynn.
McCabe told CNN anchor John Berman that Trump's comments about Flynn being targeted by the FBI were incorrect.
"The president debases himself and reduces himself every day by saying disgusting things about people, and in this case, saying disgusting things about people who dedicated their lives to protecting this country and their fellow citizens. That’s all horrendous and we’re, unfortunately, used to that by now," he said.
"But I would point out that General Flynn was not targeted. He was properly investigated in a well-predicated case, a case that’s been — a case whose validity has been proven not just by those of us who were involved but later by the Mueller investigation and after that by the Inspector General’s investigation," McCabe continued. "He was investigated because we had reason to believe he presented a threat to national security. I still think that those things are worthy of investigation. Apparently the president does not."
Earlier in the segment, McCabe told Berman that "conservative media has been obsessed with finding some indication of a setup" when the investigation first started.
"We strategize about interviews every day. When we sit down with a terrorist, we think about will they admit to the crimes that we think they have committed or will they lie about their known associations? If they lie, will that give us something else, additional leverage that we can apply in our investigation? That’s exactly what happened with General Flynn," McCabe said.
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