'Like a three-car major pileup': Andrew McCabe slams Trump's abuses of power — and says it's going to get worse
On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time," former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe tore into President Donald Trump for his handling of the Ukraine scandal — and warned that his legal and political problems are only going to worsen.
"What does it mean to you, Trump aides scrambled to alert lawyers of their concerns," asked anchor Chris Cuomo. "At least one National Security Council official alerted the White House's national security lawyers about the concerns. The White House lawyers thought they could deal with the situations, but then those same lawyers later ordered the transcript moved to that highly classified server."
"Yeah. So this is really troubling for, I think, the president and the administration. On a couple of levels," said McCabe. "First, as you pointed out in your lead-in, it really undercuts their argument that this was a 'perfect' call and that nothing — that there was no problem here. Essentially what you have now is what started out as a one-car collision has now turned into like a three-car major pile-up. The White House knew about concerns with this call first from the general counsel of another intelligence agency who called and put them on notice a complaint had come to their attention."
"Second, from the ICIG, when they found out there was an official whistleblower, complaint and now we find out that their own people inside the White House were so concerned about this, they raised them with the national attorneys," said McCabe. "They are their own folks and their own infrastructure there and that is — that's a particularly — that's a tough hit, I think, on the administration today."
"Now, people will say, 'Oh, you and your anonymous sources, who are these people?' Bring up the text messages from Volker, from acting Ambassador Taylor, the guy put in to replace the woman they didn't like for pushing back on this kind of stuff, and Ambassador to EU Sondland, who was supposed to testify today."
"That's right," said McCabe. "As an investigator, Chris, this is what you hope for when you start down the investigative path, that each step that you take uncovers another witness, another text message, another piece of evidence. That's what we've seen today. Look, every day there's been a steady drip of developments along the investigative line."
"I think the text messages are some of the toughest pieces of evidence that the president and the administration are going to have to deal with. They start out with references to Rudy Giuliani that are remarkable. He plays such an influential role in these two diplomats' lives and what they're going to be doing with Ukraine. They talk about him as if they need to get his approval before they set up calls with aides of the president of Ukraine and that sort of thing and they kind of top off with the references that you pointed to."
Watch below: