'Trump is going to have to appear and testify': Ex-prosecutor says McCabe lawsuit is 'pretty exciting'

On Thursday, former federal prosecutor John Flannery told MSNBC's Ari Melber that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's wrongful termination suit against the White House is "exciting" — because it could put President Donald Trump himself in the "hot seat."

"What do you think is important in what Mr. McCabe is doing here, and is he taking a risk of his own because you know, this drudges back up what the administration says was their critiques of him?" asked Melber.

"Well, I have a feeling that McCabe’s on the right side of the fact pattern here," said Flannery. "The thing that excites me about it is how soon can we subpoena Mr. Trump as the person who is responsible for his firing as part of Trump's defense? So in a civil suit, we have a lot of precedents that say Trump is going to have to appear and testify. We have several civil cases. I think that it’s a pretty exciting thought that you might get even more information. Somebody might finally get Trump in the hot seat over this matter."

"And viewers I think who follow the story will remember, it was not that Donald Trump had an issue with one person at the FBI or DOJ," added Melber. "This was a campaign by him to go after a bunch of different people for his reasons, and then you have a legal debate whether those were lawful reasons or not. Reading from the new filing, we have the McCabe view, later to be tested in court, that Trump had an unconstitutional plan to discredit and remove DOJ and FBI employees who were deemed to be his partisan opponents because they were not 'Politically loyal to him.' If that is provable, you could write anything in a brief, if that's provable with evidence, is that acceptable for a sitting president?"

"It’s not acceptable behavior at all. I mean, it's really criminal," said Flannery. "And luckily, we're going to have this civil discussion and I think it's going to survive motions to dismiss ... It comes at a time when Congress is planning a fall ramming speed campaign to fire Trump, and I think that they finally laid out a plan of action."

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