Today the acting director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, was questioned by Sen. Marco Rubio about the impact of the firing of James Comey. McCabe said there had been no effort to impede the investigation and added that nothing would stop the FBI from doing the right thing.

“Has the dismissal of Mr. Comey in any way impeded, interrupted, stopped or negatively impacted any of the work, any investigation or ongoing projects at the Federal Bureau of Investigations,” Sen. Rubio asked.

“As you know Senator, the work of the men and women of the FBI continues despite any changes in circumstance, any decisions,” McCabe replied. He continued, “So there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date. Simply put, sir, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the constitution.”

I imagine there were a few FBI agents watching this testimony who let out a cheer when McCabe delivered that last line. Here’s video of the exchange:

McCabe isn’t the only person saying this today. Former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger made the same point in an interview on PBS News Hour. From Real Clear Politics:

“What we can say with complete confidence is that there’s nothing about removing Mr. Comey from this job that’s going to affect that investigation,” Terwilliger said. “In fact, with all due respect to Ben, I think it’s an insult to the career men and women in the FBI and the Justice Department who are conducting that investigation to suggest that it would be so.” “That investigation’s going to proceed. It will proceed in a — in a appropriate and deliberate fashion. It will be led by those career folks. And, at the end of the day, it will go wherever it goes.”

As I was saying yesterday, if this is an attempt at a cover-up, it’s a very stupid one. Firing the FBI Director does not stop the FBI investigation and does not stop the parallel investigations in the House and Senate. All this does is add fuel to the fire. In fact, you can bet that the FBI agents working this case are twice as motivated as they were before to find out what’s going on because their credibility is on the line.