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Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s performance at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was a “disaster,” former US attorney Brett Tolman said on Wednesday.
“This is a great example of someone who has inconsistencies, lies, deceptions for a period of time that has been uncovered and then tries to keep everything straight. I mean, this testimony was a disaster, ”Tolman told“ Fox & Friends ”.
As McCabe was asked about the flaws in the Russia investigation, Tolman said McCabe was straddling “wanting to protect himself” and then FBI Director James Comey, while being “aware of the fact. that they were both in charge ”at the time.
“There has been a leak and it may be a criminal offense,” Tolman said, responding to Senator Ted Cruz asking McCabe if Comey had authorized him to release information to the press about the Clinton Foundation investigation.
LAWYERS GRILL MCCABE ON RUSSIA PROBE AS EX-FBI OFFICIAL SAYS HE REGRETS SIGNATURE OF FISA PAGE
McCabe said Tuesday that had he been aware of the factual inaccuracies in the FBI’s request for a warrant for the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, he would not have approved it.
McCabe faced questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding this issue and others regarding the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible links to the president’s campaign. Trump. Committee chairman, Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., pressed McCabe on Page’s warrant that was filed under the Foreign Intelligence Review Act (FISA), and asked if he would have signed if he knew then what he knows now.
“No, sir,” McCabe said.
Despite this admission and the recognition that the FBI’s depictions in warrant applications contained false statements, McCabe declined to say who was ultimately to blame.
“I think we are all responsible for the work that has been done in this FISA,” McCabe told Graham. When asked if he had misled the court, McCabe only replied that he had “signed a package” that contained errors or omitted information that should have been included.
McCabe did not reveal the name of anyone directly responsible for the false statements. Former FBI Director James Comey neither when he appeared before the committee in September.
Graham expressed frustration on Tuesday that the FBI’s response to who was responsible for the FISA requests essentially amounted to “everyone is responsible and no one is responsible.”
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Tolman said that while he is proud to have served in the FBI, there are aspects of the FBI that “need to be corrected.”
“I didn’t realize that we could systematically endure what we have both on an individual level, people’s lives have been destroyed, but also on an organizational level. Right now the FBI is still in shock from 2016 and the country has absolutely lost confidence that the FBI will not be political in the future.
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
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