'The FBI is not going to let this go': Andrew McCabe says federal investigation of Capitol rioters' contacts is just beginning

On CNN Thursday, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe weighed in on the news that the FBI is investigating connections between the Capitol rioters — and potentially members of Congress.

"First of all, to the disturbing reporting we heard from Evan Perez at the top of the hour that federal investigators have data showing contact between various lawmakers and the rioters around the January 6th attack," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "What kind of questions does that raise?"

"This is classic FBI enterprise investigation technique," said McCabe. "What you saw in the first rounds of arrests, several hundred people being arrested for a mere presence in the Capitol, that's a very logical place to start, but as they get deeper and deeper into that crowd of rioters, what the FBI is looking for is evidence of association between rioters."

"They're looking at phone records," he continued. "They're looking at the text records on rioters' cell phones and smartphones to see which folks may have been working with each other and planning, and it sounds like during the course of that work they came across indicators of contact between some of the rioters and some members of Congress. That's going to likely be phone contacts or potentially even text messages, and also contact between rioters talking about referring to members of Congress. So this is very concerning."

"The one thing we can be sure of, the FBI is not going to let this go," added McCabe. "You heard [Director] Chris Wray pledge that in front of Congress just a few days ago."

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