On Tuesday former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe became the fourth witness to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Crossfire Hurricane. We've already heard from former FBI director James Comey, former Trump Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and former Obama Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Like the rest, McCabe defended the FBI's decision to investigate the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia.
'We didn’t open a case because we liked one candidate or didn’t like the other one," McCabe said. "We didn’t open a case because we intended to stage a coup or overthrow the government...We opened a case to find out how the Russians might be undermining our elections. We opened a case because it was our obligation – our duty – to do so. We did our job."
Also like the other witnesses, McCabe admitted that had he known what he knows now about the error-ridden FISA warrant to investigate former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, he would not have pursued it.
But Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), like many Democrats on the panel, questioned why they were having the hearing in the first place. Because, Graham explained, there were some clearly biased folks at the FBI, including agent Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump texts are now infamous.
When a CIA memo revealed that then-candidate Hillary Clinton accused Trump of Russian collusion "no one did anything," Graham said in frustration about the agency.
“You get a CIA memo investigative lead memo suggesting that the Democratic candidate for president Hillary Clinton is trying to divert attention from her email server problem by casting aspersions against the Trump campaign being connected to Russia, and you didn’t know about it?" Graham asked McCabe. "How is that possible?”
And so he addressed Durbin with his concerns.
"You're fine with the fact she signed off on a plan to link the GOP candidate to Russia for political purposes," Graham said to Durbin. "We are not."
"You can't take a CIA leak and put it in the garbage pan," he said, adding "that's just not fair to this country."
The people involved in Crossfire Hurricane "ignored" everything that may have changed the narrative that Trump colluded, the chairman concluded.
If they had looked into it, perhaps that would have explained Christopher Steele and his unsubstantiated dossier that was used in the Page FISA warrant.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) agreed that the FBI is "seriously impaired" by this whole affair.
Reacting on Fox News, former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) was astounded that the heads of the FBI didn't know that the FISA warrant was faulty. He said we may as well have had "a greeter from Wal-Mart" running the investigation.