Andrew McCabe Has a Warning For President Trump: Mueller Won’t Be Intimidated

Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe has a stark warning for President Donald Trump: don’t for one second believe you can influence special counsel Robert Mueller through veiled threats on Twitter or elsewhere.

McCabe said as much in an interview conducted by Natasha Bertrand of The Atlantic.

The former deputy FBI director made headlines earlier this week in an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” in which he revealed that an investigation was started looking into the president himself in the days after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey. McCabe also said there was an “inappropriate relationship” between Trump and Russia, according to reporting from USA Today.

McCabe says his notes from his conversations with President Trump and Rod Rosenstein have been turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller. “Those memos are in the custody of the special counsel’s team.” https://t.co/e3KwHEqens — 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 18, 2019

In the latest interview, however, conducted last week between him and Bertrand but published on Tuesday morning, McCabe gives Trump a bit of advice about how to handle the ongoing Russia investigation, including how to better manage special counsel Mueller.

His advice, in short: you can’t.

“I know him pretty well. And I have never known him to be intimidated by anything or anyone,” McCabe said. He went on:

“[Mueller] is at heart an investigator, and he is not the kind of investigator who’s going to be brushed off of a potential area of investigation because he’s afraid of provoking the ire of the president, or making somebody mad, or getting too close to the boundaries. He is going to go wherever he thinks he needs to go to find out what happened.”

Trump has frequently derided the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt,” and has at several junctures attacked Mueller specifically. As recently as this past Sunday, Trump sent out a tweet in which he targeted the special counsel specifically.

The Mueller investigation is totally conflicted, illegal and rigged! Should never have been allowed to begin, except for the Collusion and many crimes committed by the Democrats. Witch Hunt! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2019

“The Mueller investigation is totally conflicted, illegal and rigged!” Trump tweeted this past weekend, adding it “[s]hould never have been allowed to begin.”

The president closed out his thoughts by giving one last line on how he felt about the inquiry: “Witch Hunt!” he wrote.