Trump lawyer: End the inquiry
Ousted FBI deputy turns over memos to Mueller’s team
WASHINGTON — Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director long scorned by President Donald Trump and just fired by the attorney general, has turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators personal memos describing interactions with the president.
Mueller’s team of investigators has been examining Trump campaign ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice.
A lawyer for Trump said on Saturday that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the special counsel’s investigation, should end the inquiry.
The Trump lawyer, John Dowd, made the statement to the Daily Beast a day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe, who was among the first officials at the bureau to scrutinize the possible links between Russia and the Trump team.
“I pray that Acting Attor-
ney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss (dismissed FBI chief ) James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt dossier,” Dowd said in his statement.
Dowd said he was speaking on behalf of the president. But in a subsequent statement issued Saturday morning by Trump’s lawyers, Dowd backtracked, saying he had been “speaking for myself, not the president.”
He did not elaborate on why he was calling for the end of the investigation, saying only: “Just end it on the merits in light of recent revelations.”
Attempts to reach Dowd were unsuccessful.
The remark represented an extraordinary shift in the public strategy by the Trump legal team. For months, Trump’s advisers have urged the president to avoid any criticism of Mueller, and the president’s lawyers had done nothing publicly that could agitate Mueller’s team. Conversations with Comey
McCabe’s memos include details of his own interactions with the president. They also recount different conversations he had with Comey, who kept notes on meetings with Trump that unnerved him, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation who wasn’t authorized to discuss the notes publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Though the precise contents are unknown, the memos could help substantiate McCabe’s assertion that he was unfairly maligned by a White House he says had declared “war” on the FBI and Mueller’s investigation. They almost certainly contain, as Comey’s memos did, previously undisclosed details about encounters between the Trump administration and FBI that could be of interest to Mueller.
The disclosure Saturday came hours after Trump called Sessions’ dismissal of McCabe “a great day for Democracy” and asserted without elaboration that McCabe knew “all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels off the FBI!” In the last year, Trump has repeatedly condemned as emblematic of an FBI that he insists is biased against his administration.
Sessions said he acted on the recommendation of FBI disciplinary officials who said McCabe had not been candid with a watchdog office investigation. McCabe was fired two days before his retirement date Sunday.
The dismissal likely jeopardizes his ability to collect his full pension benefits and, more broadly, could add to the turmoil that has enveloped the FBI since Comey’s firing and as the bureau moves ahead with an investigation the White House has dismissed as a hoax.
An upcoming inspector general’s report is expected to conclude that McCabe, who spent more than 20 years with the FBI, had authorized the release of information to the media and was not forthcoming with the watchdog office as it examined the bureau’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. McCabe has vigorously disputed the allegations and said his credibility had been attacked as “part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally” but also the FBI and law enforcement.
“It is part of this administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the special counsel investigation, which continue to this day,” he added. “Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the special counsel’s work.”
The firing set off dueling tweets between Trump, who called the termination a “great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI,” and Comey, the director he fired 10 months ago.
Trump called Comey “sanctimonious” and said Comey made McCabe “look like a choirboy.” Comey, referencing his highly anticipated book that comes out next month, responded with his own tweet: “Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.” Future of the investigation
In his statement to the Daily Beast, Dowd did not specifically mention Mueller. But the implication he believed Mueller should be fired was unmistakable.
Such a move would set off alarms among Republicans in Congress, who could be forced to aggressively investigate the action.
Trump’s lawyers have worked to keep him from firing Mueller in the past. In June, the president ordered Mueller fired but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.
The president has faced a series of revelations this past week about the investigation, and one person close to the White House said the president was livid over a report that Mueller had subpoenaed his corporate records, including those related to Russia.
Trump said in July that the special counsel would be crossing a red line if he looked into his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia. But his lawyers privately tried to play down the subpoena, in part to keep the president and his family calm.
Trump has a long history of using advisers to publicly float a message, giving himself some distance from it. Dowd was the first Trump lawyer to publicly suggest the Russia inquiry had no merit.