Sen. Angus King: Andrew McCabe’s Firing Appears To Be ‘Mean-Spirited’ Act of ‘Vengeance’

Sen. Angus King said the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was “mean-spirited” and appeared to be at least in part an act of “vengeance,” during an interview on Sunday with CBS News’ Face the Nation.

The Maine senator told host Margaret Brennan he was concerned with the timing of McCabe’s dismissal, which occurred just days before he would have been able to receive a full pension from his tenure with the federal agency.

“It just seemed mean-spirited to come down on a guy within 48 hours of his scheduled retirement,” Sen. King said. “He had 21 years of exceptional service in the FBI, so it was clearly rushed, and I think there are questions about that and whether the administration was putting pressure on the Justice Department to take this action. The whole thing appears at least at this point — we’re going to find out more in the coming weeks — but it appears to have been compressed in order to take vengeance on this guy for some reason.”

The senator said that he would wait to read the inspector general’s report on the firing before taking an official stance on the matter, adding that he’d also like to hear McCabe’s response to that report when it’s eventually released.

“I don’t want to go on press reports of pieces of it. A long time ago, I learned there are two sides to every story and I want to see what the inspector general says. I want to see what Andrew McCabe has in the way of a response,” he said.

Watch a clip of the interview above, via CBS News.

[image via screengrab]

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