Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said he believes former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe “put their thumb on the scale” in directing the investigations against President Donald Trump, creating “too much interference from the top.”
Whitaker, who took over the Department of Justice under Trump for more than three months after Jeff Sessions resigned from the post, told Newsmax TV on Friday that many of the now questionable decisions made during the counterintelligence investigation that began as Crossfire Hurricane – and later conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller – came as a result of decisions by top-level officials.
“I think what happened, particularly in this Crossfire Hurricane investigation that ended up becoming the Mueller investigation, is there was too much interference from the very top,” Whitaker said on “Stinchfield.”
“The director and deputy director at the FBI, Jim Comey and Andy McCabe, who put their thumb on the scale, who would really ignore evidence to the contrary, including exculpatory evidence, or the lack of confirmation of any criminal conspiracy with the Russian government and would continue an investigation that should have been closed in January or February 2017.”
Whitaker’s comments come a day after documents filed by the lawyer for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn showed that FBI agents involved in the case exchanged text messages declaring that they “all went and purchased professional liability insurance.”
Flynn pled guilty to lying to FBI agents but is attempting to withdraw his plea. Previously disclosed documents indicated that the FBI agents who initially investigated Flynn found nothing amiss and were about to close their investigation when directed otherwise by senior officials.
Whitaker also pointed to then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden as also being involved in the investigation. He referenced declassified documents of handwritten notes believed to be written by FBI agent Peter Strzok of a Jan. 5, 2017, White House meeting between Biden, Obama, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, then National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Comey showing it was Biden who suggested pursuing Flynn under the so-called Logan Act.
“I think we know that the Jan. 5 meeting was so important and critical to what these folks discussed at the time,” Whitaker said. “You know, Susan Rice famously wrote the cover your rear end email that kind of laid out what was discussed. We have the notes from some in the room.
“But there is no doubt in my mind that both Vice President Biden and the president, Barack Obama, knew about this investigation, were attempting to direct some of the investigation, and were one of the reasons why the Logan Act, of all things, was brought up in order to go after Gen. Flynn, which is probably one of the most egregious abuses of power that I’ve ever seen at the Department of Justice in my time there.”
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