After a leading question from CNN host Chris Cuomo, fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said now is “absolutely” the time to start impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.
McCabe made the statement after being asked by Cuomo, “Do you believe that an impeachment inquiry is warranted based on what you understand and what has come out of the Mueller report?”
McCabe, who wrote a memoir trashing Trump and defending the FBI, immediately agreed with Cuomo, saying, “absolutely.”
The Hill reported that McCabe insisted Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report provided enough evidence to impeach Trump, even though the report found no evidence of collusion and made no determinations regarding obstruction of justice. Democrats have fixated on the obstruction claims, even though Mueller’s investigation was supposed to be a counterintelligence investigation, which is done on behalf of the president and therefore cannot be obstructed by the president. Further, since there was no underlying crime, only partisans can argue that Trump was obstructing rather than protesting the false accusations against him.
“I think we are clearly there with the results of the special counsel team,” McCabe said regarding impeachment. “There are so many witnesses who could provide important, essential testimony to Congress that can only be done in the scope of an impeachment inquiry.”
McCabe added that “Action should be taken immediately,” and that it didn’t matter whether such an inquiry led to an actual impeachment.
McCabe was fired 26 hours before he was set to retire from the FBI and collect his full pension. His firing came as the result of an inspector general investigation that found he had leaked information to the media regarding the special counsel investigation and then lied, repeatedly, to investigators about doing so. As The Washington Post wrote at the time:
The report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz is remarkable for its level of detail, casting McCabe as a man who repeatedly lied to investigators and his own boss about his role in a disclosure of information, even while he lashed out at others who he thought might be responsible for leaks.
It accuses McCabe of lying at least four times, three of them under oath, and says that while he had the power to approve disclosures of information to the media, his doing so in this instance violated policy because it was done “in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership.”
It also says McCabe and Comey contradicted one another in their descriptions of how a media disclosure was authorized. While the report favors Comey’s account, it will likely generate tough questions for him as he launches a media blitz to promote his new book.
Since being fired, McCabe has made questionable claims while promoting himself. Earlier this year, he claimed that Department of Justice leaders discussed working with Vice President Mike Pence and other members of Trump’s Cabinet “to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment.”
The DOJ denied such claims.