and there was a letter from andy mccabe's lawyers to that effect. so this has been something that they probably could have announced months ago. but it looks like it was conveniently timed for pr purposes today. >> so we understand that andrew mccabe has just given an interview. we have a piece of that, him talking about what has happened. let's all of us listen to it for the first time right now. >> it's exceedingly rare. i'm not aware of a similar situation in my 21 years in the fbi. this is a simple situation. it was a very simple set of facts, uncontested facts. the ig makes criminal referrals to the department of justice based on their investigations many times a year. and in almost all of those cases, those referrals are declined oftentimes before the ink is even dried on the ig's report. and for some reason, this one dragged on despite the simplity, the small number of witnesses involved dragged on for almost two years. against the backdrop of how we've seen the politicizing of situations. it should be concerning to all americans. >> do you be

integrity and fidelity and bravery, are not being put in that same big toxic stew with those, including andy mccabe, where at the top levels of the fbi in 2016 trying to prevent donald trump from being president. chris: does donald trump think the mccabe case should be reopened? >> should have been punished because he lied and lied several times to the investigators and many people feel the same way. i will not spend a lot more my life on andy mccabe. chris: i will not spend any more of my interview on that. the president has never asked him to do anything in a criminal case. but mr. trump tweeted this does not mean i do not have as president the legal right to do so. i do. but i have so far chosen not to appeared what does the president think is his legal authority to intervene in criminal cases andr who should be prosecuted and you should not be. >> did you say he is ordering who -- chris: what if he thinks -- >> yes, ladies and gentlemen, including president trump basque powers. the president is making the point and the attorney general bill barr is backing them up on this. he has not interfered

. >> i was going to say, it's a good day for the mccabe family. andy, thank you so much, i really appreciate you doing this. >> thanks, don, it was great, thanks for having me on. >> and one of my next guests knows a lot about the kind of pressure andrew mccabe has been under. john dean is here, with alice stewart, max boot and doug brinkley. i appreciate all of you being with us this evening. we'll talk on the other side of the break. ion time they have. or sending corporate their expense reports. i'll let you in on a little secret. they don't. by empowering employees to manage their own tasks, paycom frees you to focus on the business of business. to learn more, visit paycom.com what's going on? it's the 3pm slump. should have had a p3. oh yeah. should have had a p3. need energy? get p3. with a mix of meat, cheese and nuts. it's a lifelong adventure finding all of these new connections all the time. greater details. richer stories. and now with health insights. get your dna kit at ancestry.com. >>> andrew mccabe told me the case against him should ne

andy mccabe was only the acting director of the fbi for a short time. it was right after comey was fired. but the fbi right after comey was fired was was a fraught time. mccabe didn't flinch. that was what he did when he was in that role. so naturally the president decided that he must be, you know, well, proverbially off with his head. the president's orientation toward andrew mccabe became one of a heat seeking missile. the president fixated on mccabe as an enemy. public denunciation after public denunciation. long after there was a new fbi director and mccabe had returned to his previous job, the president kept training fire on andy mccabe, insisting publicly and hounding the fbi into firing him, firing him specifically a single day short of him being eligible to receive his pension as a 20-year fbi veteran. even beyond hounding the fbi into firing him, the president also demanded that mccabe should be criminally charged as well. lock him up. well, understand attorney general william barr last year, the department of justice finally started to seem am

first the decision not to charge andy mccabe. why announce it now, and was this at all expected? >> the mccabe case was difficult as john has hinted. there's a lot of problems with it. it was always going to be a very difficult case. brooke, i think one of the things that you have to remember is just a couple of months ago they had indicated to the mccabe team that they thought charges would be coming. so the question is what has happened in intervening period that has caused them to reverse course? and we still don't have an explanation for that. we know that this is a case that came out of an inspector ygenerl investigation. today is valentine's day as you know, brooke, so this is a bit of a valentine's day surprise, i think, for the president's supporters. the idea that mike flynn who has been campaigning with the idea that he was maliciously prosecuted, that his case is now going to get this review, is i think, being welcomed by some of his supporters. but at the same time one of the things that's happening in the court dob cket, in the court documents, you see that the depart

. >> good day for the mccabe family. andy, thank you so much. we really appreciate you doing this. >> thanks, don. it was great. thanks for having me on. >>> one of my next guests knows a lot about the kind of pressure andrew mccabe has been under. appreciate all of you joining us this evening. we'll talk on the other side of the break. dance-offs... more travels... or more touchdowns. get the immune support that gives you more. airborne's crafted blend has vitamins, minerals and herbs. and no gummy has more vitamin c. airborne. let's get down to business. the business of atlanta on monday... ... cincinnati on tuesday. ...philly on wednesday. ...and thursday back to cincinnati . modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business keeps going, our business is you. get the lowest price guaranteed on all choice hotels when you book direct at choicehotels.com. >>> to hear andrew mccabe tell me the case against him should never have been brought. you heard me say he and his colleagues were only guilty of doing their job,

and in the short time andy mccabe served as acting fbi director in the wake of mr. comey's firing, mr. mccabe approved the opening of two investigations that we know of into the president. first, and it is unsurprising looking back at it, but first, he approved an investigation into whether the president in fact had fired james comey for the reason he explained to the russians. did he in fact fire comey or do anything else specifically to try to impede the government's investigation into russia messing with our election? so that's an obstruction of justice investigation into the president. mccabe approves that. mccabe also approved expanding the kifting counter russian investigation into the potential attack into the role of the president. this terrible central counterintelligence question as whether the president was somehow compromised by a foreign power, whether that anything to do with russia intervening in our election to try to install him in office, mccabe improved the expansion of the investigation to include that matter. andy mccabe was only acting director

>> dagen: i think that's spot on, evidence, we know how president trump feels about andy mccabe basedhis tweets over time, this is bill barr not doing the president's bidding, perhaps. but i will point something out, jim comey's testimony contradicted andy mccabe's testimony, those two former allies were not in agreement with each other about this said leak over the foundation investigation and comey said in his testimony which the inspector general talked about in their original report, comey was misled about age, that was part about what was going on. if this ever went to trial, jim comey would've been a key witness. >> harris: the penalty for lying to the feds are trying to wiggle out of trouble is so far from uniform, every situation is different and i just don't know what to make, i don't like that. >> brad: the feds led to all of us, they seem to escape liability every time but something tells me we haven't heard the last of this investigation. >> harris: that's what you're saying, do you foresee then anything coming up that would touch on andy mccabe? you know, if you look at j

when andy mccabe lies to the fine, nothing happens. but when a trump supporter lies he risks having the book thrown at him. does the crime fit the punish meteorologist a first time offender in his late 60s heading to jail for possibly a decade? stone's lawyers are asking for a new trial. on this we should all be unanimous. he deserves one. the jury was biased. i have shown you the evidence. the foreperson tweeted over and over again against donald trump and his supporters. tomeka hart', the very guy she was supposed to be making a decision on. that's not justice. justice has not been served. roger stone deserves a new trial with a fair jury. if that's even possible these days. remember this. the president of the united states meanwhile, he has the power to either commute or reduce the sentence or pardon all together. and just so we are all aware, this is something that happens quite a bit. obama pardoned 212 individuals and commuted more than,700 sentences. he freed chel she manning for goodness sake. this full-on espionage stuff. obam

day with integrity and fidelity and bravery aren't being put florida in that toxic stew including andy mccabe trying to prevent trump from being president. chris: does the president think the mccabe case should be reopened? >> the president thinks the mccabe case -- mccabe should be punished. chris: attorney general barr said the president never asked him to do anything in a criminal case. but the president tweeted, this does not mean i don't have the legal right to do so, i do, but i have so far chosen not to. what does he think is his legal authority to order who should be prosecuted. >> the president is making the point and the attorney general bill barr is backing him up on this that he has not interfered in any criminal case. i know people are trying to bully bill barr out of his job like elizabeth warren. he's not going to be bullied by people like elizabeth warren or steve cohen. chris: does he have the authority to get involved in criminal cases? >> the president can weigh in. the president weighs in with the whole world. he had a conversation with the hold world. he put it on his twi

and moments ago, andy mccabe who is a current contributor here at cnn said this to my colleague briana cubeler. >> as glad as i am that the justice department and the d.c. u.s. attorney's office finally decided to do the right thing to do, it is an absolute disgrace that they took two years and put my family through this experience for two years before they finally drew the obvious conclusion and one they could have drawn a long, long time ago. >> cnn crime and justice reporter shimon prokupecz is in washington. were there any hints this was coming? >> no, there were absolutely no hints, brooke. andrew mccabe and his attorneys have been asking for month when this case was kind of lingering on. there was no notice, no word on what was happening. there was -- at one point there was speculation, actually, and a strong feeling that andrew mccabe was going to be charged, that he was going to be indicted, and his attorneys started asking the d.c. u.s. attorney at the time, that office they were asking them what's going on with this case. where is this case? have you decided not to pursue? is

i mean, i'm very happy for andy mccabe, personally.the way he was treated over the past several years has been outrageous. the way the department treated him. the way the fbi treated him. the way the president treated him. it's just been outrageous. and the way that they are treating the department of justice is outrageous. the way they're handling these cases is outrageous. it's terrible for the men and women of the department of justice who try their best every single day to do justice. that's what the place is all about. that's how people think. and when you work there, you put aside your personal interests, your views. i don't care what people say on twitter or anywhere else. i mean, it's just not true. people that go there, put aside their personal views and try to do the work of the american people in an independent, impartial way. that's what everybody is about. that's what the culture is like. and so this has just been terrible. and it's very disruptive. and so i think, you know, the attorney general's comments yesterday in tha

"goes to jail for a long time, and so did andy mccabe, who lies to the fbi. fairness? fairness. a social media. his confidant and friend, roger stone, has been sentenced, as you said, to 40 months. a lot less than what prosecutors originally wanted. and it matches, as i believe you just said previously, would william barr, the ag, had want wanted. it is coming fast and furious now. after two hours inside that courtroom. >> melissa: right, and the point -- when i asked our judge, andrew napolitano, what signal is she sending with that sentence? and he said, making it more difficult for the president to pardon roger stone, because his issue is sentences that are too long. in this case she went directly along with what is attorney general suggested, so it makes it -- marie, you are talking about the issue before. he pardon, is it okay when they been treated unfairly or when the sentence is too long? taking away that second one. we go back to the unfair treatment, though. he wants to jump in? >> brian: if you believe "the washington post" story is correct and there is legitimate fri

as fbi official andy mccabe authorized illegal leaks to the press and lied to investigators about doingabe was fired from his job from that as he should have been. today prosecutors announced they will not bring any criminal charges against him for committing what were obviously crimes. over at cnn, they celebrated the news. >> look, many observers looked at this investigation and they believed it to not have merit. to your point, that it doesn't have merit, obviously you are not a completely objective party in that right? i just want to put that out there that there are a lot of observers, independent observers who looked at this and says this doesn't make sense. >> tucker: well, other corrupt former fbi officials were thrilled by the news, too. lisa page, who spent months texting her boyfriend peter strzok about how to stop donald trump, not her job by the way as a federal employee, tweeted this: cheers, andy. with a photography of herself holding a glass of wine. in other words, hey, america, up yours. but mccabe was the one man on the left today that didn't seem happy about the news

even on days like, you know, andy mccabe not being indicted.ill barr is also the same guy who said president trump did not obstruct justice. he is the same guy who said we need proportionality in the roger stone's sentence. this is the department that said we didn't have the evidence on andy mccabe the. we have got to give him the resources and the time and the support to get those institutions back where we need them as a country to be. >> tucker: now, if i recall, it was brennan himself that said to you the dirt clinton bought and paid for dossier was not used in an intelligence assessment. hasn't that been contradicted trey gowdy and what does that tell you? >> yes. i asked him in house intel. keep in mind the dossier was still classified at the time. i had to refer to it another way. i have said was it used in a court file. i was referring to the fisa. i couldn't say it publicly. he said not to his knowledge. what we need is john durham to go. lock. the lady shouldn't care whether you are a republican or democrat. if roger stone lied to con

he -- andy mccabe is somebody who has spent his years in the fbi. one of his jobs as the head of the counterterrorism apparatus of the fbi is probably the most bo bone-crushing job in government. this is a guy who just spent years protecting this country. and the way that the president has treated him and the way that the justice department dragged this out for him really is a disgrace. >> yeah, david gurgen, i mean, so much has happened in only a week and a half since the president's acquittal. i mean, are there any checks or guardrails left on this presidency? i mean, is this all just a preview of what's to come ahead, ahead of the election? >> yeah. that's a really good question. let me just put a footnote to carrie. the most vile thing the administration did was to fire mccabe on the eve of retiring and cost him his entire savings by the government. but we need to wrap up here, anderson, for the night. but nonetheless, i think the big question is the president so emboldened that no one will stop him? or what mechanisms do we have? certainly, the

you, what do you make of your former colleague trey gowdy's comments and decision not to indict andy mccabenk he's right about the prospect that there's more to come out of this realm. well, apparently that's not the case like some people like mccabe, you look at what happened with papadopoulos, he got a date wrong and he's prosecuted. you look at roger stone and this was basically a noncrime that they were investigating to begin with and then you look at flynn and even the fbi said that he didn't intend to lie but was prosecuted. he lied and he lied about the lie and nothing happens. quite frankly i don't know how they will get their reputation back if they don't clean up their own house and maybe in this situation they fear that if you go after this particular set of lies then you're going to have to talk about the clinton foundation even more, maybe they don't want to go there. i don't know but there's a lot of questions that need to be answered on this and i do think that mr. gowdy is right that there's more to come. >> congressman, good morning, mitch roschelle, is it possible that wit

. >> ed: the doj meanwhile dropping another bombshell, saying it will not prosecute andy mccabe. the former fbi chief who admitted to opening the investigation into president trump and russia. republican congressman matt gaetz is here. he's got some thoughts next. >> the facts of andrew mccabe dead to rights. he lied to comey, and he lied to the special affair investigation committeeinvestigators that he d the release that disclose the work being done regarding the clinton foundation. there's a better choice. aleve pm. and my side super soft? yes! with the sleep number 360 smart bed, on sale now, you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. and snoring? no problem. ... and done. so, you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. and now, during the ultimate sleep number event, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 36 months. ends monday >> we heard the reports a week or

andy mccabe, jim baker on the other side..omey, peter strzok ran the clinton investigation, the trump-russia investigation. this is what bill barr said, the upper echelon of the fbi, a failure of leadership there, that is the understatement of the year and yet he is lecturing pat cipollone, who just did a great job defending the president? that would be laughable. >> laura: one of the most credible people in washington. >> guess what you get to be if you're under indictment with the fbi, you get to be a contributor on cnn!lene >> laura: exactly, what is your talent? democrats and the media today b were declaring the death of the g.o.p. >> i think it is a sad day for the so-called republican party. >> they are going to need to find their soul. >> leadership and membership has now joined hands with a tyrant. >> a trump-ist party which is not the party joined and even from five years ago. it needs to be removed from positions of authority and power.fr >> laura: he just said it needs to be removed? they are not in favor of a repre

he tweeted about the justice department's decision not the prosecute andy mccabe and asserted the rightne in the criminal cases, and why isn't the president listening to the attorney general? >> the president has been able to communicate to the american people with the social media outlet and it is one of the things that the people love about him, and it is going to be an effective way for him to communicate with the american people, and he is going to continue to do it. today i read in the washington post that the attorney general is the president's wingman, and that is what attorney general eric holder said he was the wingman of obama, and now this is different. >> well, the media is not criticizing us, but the president. >> and when eric holder said that i am the president's wingman and the media was silent and the fact is that attorney general barr is independent, and he came in to decisions on his own and not according to the president. >> so what i am hearing you saying is that the president is using the social media that is okay, and he is taking it to the level to be a disrupter

>> andy mccabe was referred for prosecution by the ig. in an unbiased nonpartisan ig. e mainstream media has made mccabe a paragon of some sort of patriotism it feeds the perception today of a two-tier justice system in this country. it is actually should send shivers down all-american spines because this does not happen and the constitutional republic. there is a tremendous and a grave danger to the fair application of the law in this country when you do see people like andy mccabe who have this fbi card, this get out of jail free card while other people like myself, roger stone, paul manafort, general plan, basically have everything in the kitchen sink thrown at them. bankrupted, having there does not down at six in the morning, arrested airports, thrown in solitary confinement. the main steam to stream media has mccabe and i give a lot of talks over the last couple of years or so. and there is one thing that unites americans and that is that they want accountability. that they want justice, the economy is doing great, everybody knows that, america's respected around

president's attention and perhaps stoke his wrath is the ending of essentially this investigation for andy mccabe. the decision by the justice department announced today not to file any charges for the former deputy fbi director, mccabe has been enemy one or two for trump now for more than a year. the president has firmly believed and has said so publically that he thinks mccabe should have been charged. he surely is not pleased with this decision. my colleagues at "the washington post" reported that earlier today when that news was announced, the white house did not have a heads up and there was an effort underway in the oval office at the white house to calm the president, to control him, to urge him not to speak out about mccabe. the white house counsel rushed in to try to talk to the president white away about this mccabe decision. we will see what the morning brings in terms of tweets from the president. i'm sure he is none too pleased with the outcome. >> josh, for the charges the feds nicked roger stone on, i think, correct me if i'm wrong, the max is, like, 20 years, if they wanted to thr

he tweeted about the justice department's decision not to prosecute andy mccabe and asserted his rightvene in criminal cases. why isn't the president listening to his attorney general? >> the president has been able to communicate directly with the american people through his social media outlet. it's something that helped propel him to the presidency. it's one of the things the american people love about him. he's going to keep doing it. it's what he's done from the beginning and i think it's an effective way for him to communicate with the american people. when we talk about weighing in, i read even today in "the washington post," an editorial talking about bill barr being the president's wingman. those are the exact words eric holder used when he said i am obama's wingman, and the media never criticized it. te media is criticizing it. >> i think it's not -- first of all, it's not the media, it's barr. barr is criticizing the president for his tweets, not us. >> no, what the media is krilticizing is they're alleging barr is the president's wingman, politicizing the doj, when eric hol

>> well, andy mccabe not being indicted for a are discreet fact pattern -- a very discreet fact patternf information to bolster his own credibility in the terms to of the clinton investigation. that's it. and we should have known weeks ago when they were having trouble getting an indictment, if you having trouble, there's no way you're going to get a conviction. you've seen a change in the u.s. attorney's office in the district of columbia. so he escapes indictment for that narrow fact pattern. but that has nothing to do with fisa and the initiation of russia and any other potential misconduct that andy mccabe may have engaged in. that's a really narrow, discreet fact pattern that he's not being indicted for. maria: so it could actually be that he's cooperating with john durham or that he's looking as a suspect in the now-criminal probe, is that right? >> well, he's certainly somebody john durham would want to talk to. it could go the whole range from he didn't do anything wrong, and he did admit to misrepresentations, but that's a little bit different than intentionally misrepresenting

the president obviously wants andy mccabe prosecuted, and it's just grotesque if you have the presidentof the united states behaving this way with the power of prosecution -- >> but what he's saying is -- you brought in andy mccabe, but what he's saying is if flynn or stone are going to go to jail or be in jail, shouldn't comey or -- that's how he feels. >> they did different things. the facts are not -- the facts are not identical, so it's just because he likes the two who were prosecuted and doesn't like the people who weren't prosecuted. that's not a reason. >> okay, but that's exactly why. >> that's exactly donald trump's -- i think the danger of what he is trying to do the justice department. he doesn't understand why he can't direct which people should be heading to jail and which shouldn't. >> there's this authoritarian line about my friends, everything mynomies and is the law. and with trump it's everything for mynomies, whatever i conceive of the law and all these imaginary crimes to be. >> how much of this is about barr facing rebellion in the ranks and he's trying to rescue h

we don't really know in that regard, i want to go to andy mccabe. the last hour on "outnumbered," our guest said he may not actually be out of this completely. be careful what you wish for is what we were talking about on the couch because he may be pulled in as a witness to james comey which would be if you want to say a bigger fish in this whole thing in terms of an investigation. >> we know the story is not done, we know the james comey is far from over and he may be part of that and may be called to testify but the political consequence -- i know nothing of the legal but i know the political consequences here would be real because at a time where the president and his supporters are frustrated with the justice department for their treatment of another of the president's advisors and that he were going to have this decision is going to land like an mad firecracker in a trash can and it's going to go boom all over washington and the president is not going to like this. >> harris: i want to go back to something that was in "the wall street journal"

on every other case you would see the department decline to move forward and clear andy mccabe. they haven't done nap they're handling the case of erik prince who has been referred to the intelligence committee for lying to congress. erik prince is a close ally the president. >> back with us today we're happy to be able to talk to andrew weissmann former lead prosecutor during the russia investigation working under special counsel to mueller. he is these days a distinguished fellow under the nyu school of law in new york. and counselor, first of all you worked for the mueller effort. the stone effort was a subset of that. let me start by asking you what can't you talk about because of your previous work? >> so i can talk about what's happened in the last few weeks, which is i think of interest to everyone. i cannot talk about what happened during the special counsel's office on the stone case or any other case that we were handling. >> let's start there. the departure of these four, their withdrawal from the case. how does it hit you? what does it mean inside doj? >> to the four

department will not file charges against one of those investigators, former fbi deputy director andy mccabe who authorized the fbi's 2017 investigation into the president personally. and this all comes as bill barr gave a rare interview to publicly criticize the president's attacks on the justice department for damaging its reputation for independence. the problem with making sense of any of these headlines is that bill barr's credibility is badly damaged over months to the point where it's near impossible to ascertain whether he is acting to help the president or because the law requires it and barr seemed to acknowledge the credibility problem because of the conduct of the president he serves. he's what he said about the decision to intervene in the stone case which was happening he claims as the president calling it a miscarriage of justice on twitter. >> i don't look at tweets. i don't read tweets unless they're brought to my attention. that sort of ill stratds how disruptive the tweets can be for the department of justice because at that point i had made a decision i thought was fair a

has looked into bringing charges against andy mccabe and they decided not to bring charges.rges,y had rejected it's hard to know what exactly they would have brought. we've heard that the grand jury heard the case two different times and in both times the grand jury rejected charges. trump has railed against the justice department for that, but of the grand jury rejected charges, i don't know what the justice department could do. that tells me the president trump's issue was probably with the residents of d.c., the more liberal residents of d.c. who sat on the grand jury and charges,ot to pursue rather than the u.s. attorney's office for d.c.. once a grand jury rejects charges there's not much they can do. host: let's get to call, matt, in baltimore, an independent. caller: i am 92 years old, a world war ii veteran, i'm absolutely appalled with this fisa court. i would like you to confirm or havethat the fisa courts been improving over 90% of applications were surveillance? i think that's appalling. i think the comey system is appalling. friend whory good retired from the fb

system in america roger stone could die in jail i'm pretty sure he's going to get pardoned but andy mccabe will continue with his high paying job at c.n.n. and they have something in common alex they're both were charged or it was proven that both of them lied but one lives the good life one is going to rot in prison. just this one. yeah this was you know this was no coincidence that the. the mccabe news was announced right after the roger stone thing went down i think that it's all out war in the justice department peter there's no doubt about it and i think actually now going after bar we were talking about the democrats saying that they now want bar impeached getting rid of barr once again stops the russia gate investigation stops his durban best occasion into investigating the investigators we know that durham is widening the net and he's closing in he's brand in he's komi it's really ramping up the durham investigation and i think there is real panic in d.c. these real panic on the democrat side real panic from the state and so i think this whole mccabe thing this whole stone think is