Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has endured a year of withering attacks from President Donald Trump, was sacked by the Justice Department on Friday just days before he was to retire.
"The President, the administration, and his legal team must not take any steps to curtail, interfere with, or end the special counsel's investigation or there will be severe consequences from both Democrats and Republicans". Sessions' decision to fire him, two days before his retirement, could strip him of his pension.
McCabe, who briefly led the agency after Director James Comey was sacked, said his dismissal by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday night was the latest attack on his credibility.
Last night after firing McCabe, he tweeted that it was a great day for democracy.
Dowd's new statement "basically confirms McCabe's statement from last night: that McCabe's 11th hour termination from the FBI was directly tied to the Russian Federation investigation, for which McCabe is a crucial witness", Jens Ohlin, a vice dean at Cornell Law School and an expert on criminal law, told Business Insider.
And in a second tweet, he again denied any collusion with Russian Federation, adding, "there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State".
Dowd initially said he was making the statement in his official capacity as Trump's attorney and representative, but later walked that back. "You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but will not destroy America".
McCabe's team on Friday night released a bevy of statements from former national security officials supporting the former deputy director, including from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr.; former National Security Agency Deputy Director Richard Ledgett Jr.; former USA attorney Chuck Rosenberg; former Federal Bureau of Investigation national security official Michael Steinbach; and former Justice Department national security official Mary McCord.
"Given Trump's ill-advised inclination to fire Mueller in the past, these allegations of leaks and misrepresentations inside the FBI could rekindle Trump's interest in forcing an end to the investigation that has dogged his administration for a year", he opined.
As part of his investigation, Mueller is scrutinizing whether Trump's repeated and public efforts to meddle in the DOJ constitute obstruction of justice. Notably absent was a statement from Comey, McCabe's former boss, though Comey did say after McCabe stepped down as deputy director that his second-in-command "stood tall over the last 8 months, when small people were trying to tear down an institution we all depend on".
"It is part of this Administration's ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day".
This response comes in the wake of Sessions' firing of McCabe for a "lack of candor" in his responses to an internal Justice Department investigation into how the FBI handled probes relating to the 2016 election.
On Saturday evening, a spokesman for Pocan said they hadn't yet heard from McCabe on his job offer.
"The idea that I was dishonest is just wrong", he told the Times.
But he added that "as many are now finding out", there was "tremendous leaking, lying and corruption" from the top ranks of the FBI, Department of Justice, and State Department.
McCabe reportedly wrote memos detailing his interactions with Trump during his time at the bureau, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
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