Rep. Eric Swalwell on McCabe's firing: "To me, being a former prosecutor, it looks like they're trying to dirty him up. They figure that there's more charges from Mueller coming down the pike and that eventually McCabe is going to be a figure in a trial" https://t.co/pagiUM3XA9 pic.twitter.com/JMAv0jhPIW

On Friday’s “CNN Tonight,” Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) reacted to outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s termination by stating that he thinks the president and attorney general are “sending a message” to people “who may have seen something or who may be saying something to [the] special counsel or Congress about the president and his ties to Russia.” He further argued that it appears as though the administration is trying to “dirty” McCabe.

Swalwell said, “I think that Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions are sending a message to other people in the administration who may have seen something or who may be saying something to [the] special counsel or Congress about the president and his ties to Russia. We interviewed Andy McCabe for nearly ten hours. I found him to be an honest, decent person who knew a lot about the president’s ties to Russia. And I just fear that this is a punitive act, a petty act, right before he’s about to collect his pension, but more intended to send a message to anyone who would cross the president.”

He added, “To me, you know, being a former prosecutor, it looks like they’re trying to dirty him up, that they figure that there’s more charges from Mueller coming down the pike, and that eventually, McCabe is going to be a figure in a trial, in a narrative, and that if they can dirty him up now, put an asterisk around his role, that that could mitigate their exposure. And you know, I know that McCabe knows things. Because he told the House Intelligence Committee what he knows. And he was, you know, at the genesis of this investigation. And he actually countered a lot of what the House Intelligence Committee Republicans put in their memo, their false memo. So this is, I think, just an effort to take a key player off the field.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett