Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said Tuesday he personally informed "Gang of Eight" congressional leaders that the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into President Donald Trump, but nobody ― Democrat or Republican ― objected to the probe on any grounds.
"The purpose of the briefing was to let our congressional leadership know exactly what we'd been doing," McCabe told NBC's "Today" anchor Savannah Guthrie when she asked if he'd told members of Congress. "Opening a case of this nature, not something that an FBI director, not something that an acting FBI director would do by yourself, right? This was a recommendation that came to me from my team, I reviewed it with our lawyers, I discussed it at length with the deputy attorney general, and I told Congress what we had done."
In his book "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the age of Terror and Trump," which was published Tuesday, McCabe said he'd discussed it in May 2017 with the congressional "Gang of Eight." At that time, that would have included on the Senate side Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. The House side would have been then-Speaker Paul Ryan, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, ex-Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, and ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff.
"No one objected," said McCabe. "Not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds, and not based on the facts."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.