Andrew McCabe — a former FBI official who was fired by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2018 — said that he stood by the original Russia investigation into Donald Trump even after the Durham report revealed evidence Monday that the probe had no serious basis.
Former FBI Director James Comey and his then-deputy director McCabe spent years searching for alleged collusion between Trump and Russia in the 2016 presidential election. The effort was widely publicized and spurred an investigation by then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
But McCabe attempted to discredit the Durham report's findings, arguing that it "failed to come up with anything new" on CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's show Monday night.
FBI RESPONDS TO SCATHING DURHAM REPORT ON TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE, TOUTS 'DOZENS OF CORRECTIVE ACTIONS'
"There is nothing new here," McCabe emphasized, insisting that Durham never intended on producing an honest investigation into the anti-Trump Russia probe.
"We knew from the very beginning exactly what John Durham was going to conclude, and that’s what we saw today. We knew from the very beginning this was never a legitimate investigation. This was a political errand to exact some sort of retribution on Donald Trump’s perceived enemies and the FBI," he said.
McCabe refused to back down from his endorsement of the original Russia investigation when pressed on that point by Cooper.
"I stand by the investigative decisions that we made to open the investigation first on the Trump campaign and the possibility that the Russians were trying to influence it and then later on Donald Trump himself," McCabe said.
McCabe admitted that "the mistakes with the Carter Page FISA were regrettable, should never have happened."
Carter Page, who served as a CIA operational contact and an FBI informant, was surveilled by the U.S. government for more than a year based on testimony from Igor Danchenko, who later admitted that he was lying.
"Had I known about those mistakes in the packages, I never would have signed those applications. And shame on us for not knowing," McCabe said.
McCabe also doubled down on the Mueller investigation. "What did we find out from Special Counsel Mueller's investigation? The Russians did, in fact, influence the campaign. They wanted to. They tried repeated times. They had many, many contacts with the Trump campaign. And several of those people were indicted. So, I guess what we were worried about all along actually happened."
TRUMP SAYS THERE 'MUST BE A HEAVY PRICE TO PAY' FOR COMEY, DEMOCRATS AFTER RELEASE OF DURHAM REPORT
Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that the FBI’s investigation into his affairs were a "total disgrace."
"I, and much more importantly, the American public have been victims of this long-running and treasonous charade started by the Democrats — started by Comey," Trump said in a statement.
"There must be a heavy price to pay for putting our country through this," Trump added.
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
