Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has turned into a "clown show" by drifting away from its initial goal to investigate Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said Wednesday.
In an interview on Fox News' "America's Newsroom," McCarthy said the "underlying thing that they're investigating is politics, it's not crime."
"That's camouflage for what has become a clown show," McCarthy said of developments in the Mueller investigation this week, including accusations former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied and violated his plea agreement – and an announcement writer Jerome Corsi would reject a deal with investigators that would have required him to plead guilty to perjury.
In Corsi's case, a draft court filing reportedly said Corsi notified Trump adviser Roger Stone in August 2016 that WikiLeaks intended to release information damaging to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
McCarthy said even if Corsi got the intel from WikiLeaks, and gave it to Stone who then gave it to then-candidate Donald Trump — though those facts have not been established — it is not a crime.
"What are they doing here? They are investigating the seamy underbelly of politics, the fact that campaigns go out and try to get dirt on the opposition candidate," McCarthy said.
"The underlying thing they're investigating is politics, it's not crime. And it's not a prosecutor's place to do that."
He said if Mueller had a "real case," he would have evidence the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to hack and release emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
"They don't have that. What they have is: 'Somebody has unsavory information about our opponent and we're going to try to put it out at a time that is maximal as far as the campaign is concerned,'" McCarthy said, adding Mueller has only charged people for making false statements because of underlying weakness in the case.
The remarks were posted by Fox News Insider.