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Sen. King Questions Firing of FBI Director, Calls it 'Mean-Spirited'

Maine Public

Independent U.S. Sen. Angus King is questioning the timing of the abrupt ouster of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, describing it as mean-spirited.

King, appearing on the CBS public affairs show Face the Nation, also says the Trump administration’s continued attempts to discredit the independent probe into Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election could create a constitutional crisis.

King says McCabe’s dismissal is troubling because the evidence to support his firing has not been disclosed. He also noted that the inquiry into McCabe’s conduct appeared to be fast-tracked, even though a full report is due this spring.

“It appears to be compressed to take vengeance on this guy for some reason,” says King who, along with Republican Sen. Susan Collins, is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “And I don’t think that’s the way we should be governing.”

McCabe was fired late Friday night by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions just hours before he was set to retire and collect a pension after over 20 years of service with the FBI. Sessions alleged that McCabe mislead congressional investigators and leaked to the press, but the evidence of those assertions is not yet public.

McCabe denied the allegations and said his dismissal was an attempt by the Trump administration to undermine his credibility and to undermine a special counsel investigation that has already led to the indictments to former Trump campaign officials and is moving toward the president’s business dealings.

Meanwhile, President Trump has fired off a series of tweets championing McCabe’s dismissal. The president has publicly berated McCabe for the better part of a year, tweeting in December that McCabe was racing the clock to retire.

King says it was unclear if McCabe’s firing was appropriate, but he says the timing appeared to be a “mean-spirited” attempt to deny the FBI deputy his pension.

King is also questioning the president’s repeated attempts to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference. Trump’s lawyer Robert Dowd called for an end to the investigation Saturday and the president continues to call the inquiry a witch hunt.

“Anybody who says there’s nothing to it, well they’ve already had three or four guilty pleas and 15 or 20 indictments,” King says. “That tells me that there is something going on here and there’s something serious.”

The Trump Administration’s actions have prompted congressional Democrats to claim the president is attempting to scuttle the probe and that doing so will setup a constitutional crisis.

Republicans, who currently have the majority in Congress, have had a mixed response. While some have sided with the president, others have urged him to allow the special counsel probe to finish.

Sen. Collins was attending the funeral service for her father this weekend.

Journalist Steve Mistler is Maine Public’s chief politics and government correspondent. He is based at the State House.