Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe: ’I don’t have any regrets’

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy and acting director of the FBI, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University, gives a masterclass on the indictment of Donald Trump under the Espionage Act, and goes deep with Mason President Gregory Washington into some of his career's most controversial and important moments. That includes his assessment of the investigation by Special Counsel John Durham into whether the FBI should have examined whether Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign coordinated with Russia. McCabe called Durham’s report “flawed and politically motivated from the beginning.”

 

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
(Narrator) Trailblazers and researchinnovators and technology,
and those who simply have a goodstory all make up the fabric.
That is George Mason University,
where taking on the grand challenges thatface our students graduates and higher
education is our mission and our passionhosted by Mason President Gregory
Washington. This is theAccess to Excellence podcasts.

(00:26):
(Gregory Washington) You know,
one of the greatest things about beingat George Mason University is the
opportunity to hear and learnfrom those who not only were a
part of history,
but can actually help us contextualizeevents that are now truly
and honestly shaping our lives.
My guest today checks that boxand then some. Andrew McCabe,

(00:49):
the former deputy andacting director of the fbi,
and a distinguishedvisiting professor in Mason,
Schar School of Policy and Government,
brings a lifetime of service within theJustice Department to the courses he
teaches in National Security.
McCabe was part of the investigationinto the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing,

(01:10):
and he oversaw the planningand arrest of Ahmed Abu Khattala
for his involvement in the 2012attack on the US mission in Benghazi,
Libya. His book, "The Threat:
How the F FBI ProtectsAmerica in the Age of Terror,
and Trump" was calledby the New York Times,

(01:30):
a substantive account of how theFBI worked during a moment when its
procedures and impartiality.
Were under attack now anintelligence analyst for CNN.
He is also a triathlete who wasknown for riding his bicycle,
35 miles ,
to work in Washington DC. Andthe reality of that statement

(01:53):
is, it's not the distance,
it's actually ridingon a bike for 35 miles
in Washington DC. Some people outthere know what I'm talking about.
Andrew McCabe, welcome to the show.
(Andrew McCabe) Yes, sir. Thank you so muchfor having me. It's a,
it's a pleasure and an honor to speak toyou and to talk to the Mason community,
so thanks for having me.

(02:14):
(Gregory Washington) Well, so first and foremost,I assume from the look of you,
you're still doingtriathlons, is that right?
(Andrew McCabe) I stay pretty active. I haven'tdone a triathlon yet this year,
but I actually just did ahalf marathon last Sunday,
so a few days ago when the whole family,we went out there and did one. So I I,
I try to stay pretty active.
(Gregory Washington) Ah, outstanding. Is it justhealth? What's the challenge there?

(02:35):
(Andrew McCabe) Well, it's definitely health, but I thinkit's both physical and mental health.
It's always been somethingthat I had to have in my life,
even when I was at my absolute busiestworking counter-terrorism in the,
in the FBI as a almosta 24 hour a day job.
And I would get up at four in the morningto get the workout in or to get the
ride on the stationary bike in before Iwent into the office, because of course,

(02:58):
once you're there, there it's veryhard to break away to do anything.
But it was important to me to do that.
It was also a way of keeping controlover some very small part of my day
and my schedule. So thatwas important to me as well.
So I've tried to keep itup over the years.
(Gregory Washington) Ah, very good. Very good. So for thoseof you who may or may not know,
Professor McCabe has been workingat Mason for three years now,

(03:20):
and he teaches a graduate level classon the legal framework of national
security. What is it you're tryingto get students to understand?
(Andrew McCabe) One of the things that I treasurethe most about George Mason is their
commitment to having peoplelike me teaching students.
So I am not an academic.
There are so many distinguished academicshere on campus. I'm not one of them.

(03:41):
I'm more of a practitioner.
And so my goal with this class is toreally put my students in the room.
I had the privilege of participatingin some pretty significant national
security conversations in the White House,
in the situation room as a member ofthe Interagency National Security team,
as it were from representatives,
from all different agencies involvedin things like counter-terrorism and

(04:04):
counterintelligence issues.And so from that experience,
I try to show my studentshow it actually works,
what's the differencebetween the agencies,
how each agency is pursuing itsown agenda in that conversation,
how things like personal relationshipsbetween agency heads or between the
president and his national securityadvisor have such a huge impact on the

(04:26):
direction and ultimate decisionsand the national security area.
And then we look atindividual issues like,
we'll spend a week studying detentionand interrogation policy or targeted
killing or domestic terrorism,
and talk about the policy process aroundthose issues. What's bogging them down,
how different administrations havehandled those persistent questions in

(04:46):
different ways over the years. That'sthe insight that I hope to give them.
And really,
it's all about the conversations wehave in class around those issues. It's,
it's a great time. I love it.
(Gregory Washington) Well, I don't know if you can see me overhere smiling, but what you just said,
the discussion,
the points that you just highlighted arethe best possible advertisement for why
a student should attendGeorge Mason University.

(05:09):
This is the exact thing that we hopeto bring with bringing individuals
like you here to have you engage.
So much of what studentslearn today is textbook.
So much of what studentslearn today is theory.
So little of what students learntoday is application from people
who actually know, for people who say, no,

(05:30):
you can't use that theory becauseif you use that theory in real life,
here is what will happen. That'sright. Here is what can happen.
And there's no better education thanthat. We call it experiential learning,
and it is a fantastic thing.So with your experience,
I think you could bring your studentsclearly, as you said into the room,

(05:51):
that is a tremendous value. How do thestudents react to this? What do they say?
(Andrew McCabe) You know, it,
it typically takes a class or twobefore people really warm up to the
environment and understand that nothingis outta bounds with me.
I am happy to shareanything I can from my own experience,
and I want to hear that conflict ofideas, that conflict of approaches,

(06:13):
because that's what happens in thatroom around that table in the West Wing
where you literally hash your way towardsa result or a decision or a policy.
Those are the sorts of perspectives thatyou get from George Mason. Students.
They are not consistently leaningin one direction politically or
ethically or operationally.They are very diverse.

(06:36):
I have students from all sortsof different backgrounds.
I have maybe half the class are studentswho graduated from undergrad within the
last two or three years.
And the other half of the class arepeople who are in the middle of successful
careers and seeking to increasetheir opportunities going forward.
People who are at the end of militarycareers and are looking to change their
direction professionally.in that mixture.

(06:58):
It really creates just a vitaland interesting course of
conversation. We have aclass on active measures,
and we use the example of whatthe Russians did in 2016 in their
efforts to influence the 2016presidential election. You know,
I was obviously very involved inthe FBI's response to that issue.

(07:18):
And they can sit thereand ask me, why did you,
why did you decide to do this? Or whydidn't you do something else?
And.
I'll, I'll tell them exactly the way wethought about it then the ways I think
differently about someof those things now.
So it's really a process oflearning for the both of us.
I find it enormously helpfulto me. It kind of put, uh,

(07:38):
some of these things in a differentcontext sometimes. So it's a lot of fun.
(Gregory Washington) Oh, oh man. And if I can goback and be a student again,
this is the kind of class I'dwant send. No, especially today,
with the stuff we're dealing with today,
how could you not want to get anunderstanding of the real why?
Right. That's right.We get the sound bites,

(07:59):
we hear the sound bites on both sides,
but I think people in their heart ofhearts know that there's something more.
There's a reason why certainevents happen the way they happen,
and being able to talk to people inwho were in the room and have that
discussion in a contemporarycontext. Right. To me,

(08:19):
I don't know of a better educationthat a student can get. I just don't.
(Andrew McCabe) And Mason students are those kind ofstudents. They're dialed in, they read,
they consume the news,
they come to the table with a greatbackground and a great curiosity,
which is the most important thing.
So when we talk about domestic terrorismand why does the government pursue

(08:40):
domestic violent extremism inone way, but in not another way?
And we talk about the differences thatthe First Amendment makes on how you
investigate and prosecute peoplefor domestic terrorism activities.
And then the Biden administrationreleases their new framework for how to
approach domestic terrorism. Andwe talk about it in the next class.

(09:00):
And so we are literally debatingand analyzing these policy proposals
that are coming out in real time.
(Gregory Washington) Ah, I love it. I love it.
So what do you find is the biggestmisconception among your students
about what really happensand the misconceptions they have in terms of what they
think might have happenedbefore they enter the class?

(09:22):
(Andrew McCabe) I think one of the most fundamentalmisperceptions about the policy
making process is this kind of people who,
who bring to that question theidea that government actually knows
and has a way to solve every problem.
One of the things I try to explainto my students is that these issues,
no matter from what perspectiveyou see them, these are hard,

(09:46):
impactful problems. Right.And there are no easy answers.
Every choice that you make invariablyeliminates other possibilities.
And there's no rule book there.Well, there, there are rule books.
There's the constitution, there's some,there's some very important rules,
but there's no manual that tells anyonehow to decide to do these things.

(10:07):
There's no place you can lookfor me in my FBI training at
Quantico,
or in my experience over 20 yearswhen confronted with the issue of the
Russians' efforts to undermineour presidential election. How do you handle that?
That's not in the manual anywhere.Those sorts of questions, the easy ones,
they get filtered out long beforeyou gather in that room to make these

(10:30):
decisions. And so you have to bringto that conversation, your own ethics,
your knowledge, your understanding ofhistory, of law, of legal authorities,
and, and of course what theadministration's trying to accomplish.
And they put all those things togetherand there are still tough decisions to be
made. You rarely ever get them all right.

(10:51):
But if you go through that processin a deliberate and diligent way,
factoring all those things togetherin the best way that you can,
you can at least come to a resultthat you can stand up and acknowledge
publicly, even if it didn'taccomplish the things that you wanted.
So I think that processis incredibly important.
(Gregory Washington) Oh, that's amazing. Soundsto be honest with you,

(11:13):
a lot like being a university president these days. .
Andrew McCabe) I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is.
Gregory Washington) So look, let's just jump right in.
The big news recently is thatformer president Donald Trump,
was formally charged by the JusticeDepartment in a discovery that hundreds of
classified documents were taken to hisMar-a-Lago home after he left the White

(11:35):
House. There was a 37-countindictment, if I'm not mistaken,
any person who was involvedin the national security apparatus, as a person who
was involved in this framework,
what are the consequences in the waythat the former president handled these
documents? And how was this different
What we saw with Mike Pence in someof the documents that he had that were

(11:58):
discovered, uh, with Joe Biden andwith the documents that he had,
and with Hillary Clinton with theemails, uh, that she had,
the pundits will say, ah,there's a double standard here.
Because at least on the part ofthe two Democratic individuals who
did have classified materials illegally,they were not charged. That's right.

(12:19):
They were not paraded in front of thecountry. So again, in your heart of hearts,
you're looking at this and you say, theremust be something more to the story.
Can you enlighten us just a little bit?
(Andrew McCabe) Sure. There is a lot more to the story,and I think you've hit on it very well.
There is, in a sort ofheadline perspective,
when you compare these different events,

(12:40):
these different incidents of thishandling of classified material,
there's a bit of a rushto make comparisons,
but it's really impossible to do thatuntil you start to drill down and
understand the details of what makesthese cases more or less significant and
what makes them verydifferent from each other.
So let's start by talking about theactual documents that are involved in the

(13:01):
Trump case.
So over 300 documentsstored at his residence
club, the Mar-a-Lago Clubdown in, uh, Florida.
We know that just from what's publiclyavailable from the search warrant that
was conducted last August,
we know that those documentsincluded top secret documents,
well documents at everyclassification level, right?

(13:23):
Confidential secret and top secret.
Top secret is the mostserious classification.
It means that anythingclassified top secret, uh,
the government considersthat its disclosure could cause grave harm to the US
national security. Buteven beyond top secret,
there are levels of handlingrestrictions on even more sensitive

(13:44):
matters, right? SCI securecompartmentalized information,
no foreign ORCON, all thesedifferent handling restrictions.
You have some documents that were foundat Mar-a-Lago that are what you call
compartmented documents.
So they're part of special programs thatvery small lists of people even have
access to.

(14:04):
These are truly some of ournation's most closely guarded
secrets. And in many cases,
their disclosure could leadto the loss of a collection
method, right? So that's eithera technical collection method,
meaning we have the ability totechnically capture intelligence
through cyber systems or communicationsystems, things like that.

(14:28):
Or they're the resultof human intelligence.
So it's information that's given to usby individuals who we've recruited in
foreign countries toprovide information to us.
If that information is disclosed, thosepeople could be killed. And we can lose,
not only lose a human being, whichis bad enough in and of itself,
but we lose the access tothat intelligence. If we compromise a technical means,

(14:51):
same thing. Our lights goout, we're in the dark,
we know less about our adversary. Sothis is very, very sensitive information.
Now, the former president hasbeen charged with 31 counts,
violations of the Espionage Act,it seems on its surface. Again,
there's been a lot ofhyperbolic claims about this.
He has not been accused of being a spy,

(15:12):
he's not been accused of taking thisinformation and giving it to foreign
governments. TheEspionage Act is very big,
and it covers all sortsof different activity.
Some of what it covers isthe unauthorized retention of
national defense information,
which is the allegation that is nowsitting against the former president.
So very serious documents. Hehad them as a private citizen,

(15:35):
not as president of the United States.
He held onto those documents for overa year while the National Archives,
the entity that actuallyessentially owns and controls all
presidential papers,
as soon as you are no longer presidentunder the Presidential Records Act,
the National Archives takes custodyof all your papers, all your work.

(15:57):
They are the property of theUS people. So for about a year,
he resisted giving these things back.
He ultimately made the decisionto return some of the documents,
many classified and retained many more.
He was served with a subpoena officiallyrequiring him to turn over all
classified material he did not do
so. The government hasalleged that he actively,

(16:17):
personally conspired withanother person, Walt Nauta,
to trick his attorney into notproviding the documents back to
the government under the subpoena thathe had received and held onto those
things ultimately until hisMar-a-Lago was searched last August.
So that's in a verykind of roundabout way,
the summary of the caseagainst Donald Trump.
So let's compare himwith the Mike Pence case,

(16:38):
because that's the one that'sbeen most recently resolved.
Mike Pence undertook avoluntary inspection of his own
papers.
When he saw all these things happeningwith President Biden and former President
Trump, he found a few classifieddocuments. Not too many,
I think maybe a dozen or so, Idon't have the numbers exactly.
His attorneys immediately contactedthe Justice Department and the National

(17:01):
Archives. He madearrangements to return those,
and then he allowed the government tocome in and search his residence to make
sure there wasn't anything else there.
Those are two very different sets ofcircumstances, far fewer materials.
No indication that Mike Penceever intended to deprive the government of those
materials. It appeared to be more of a,
a mistake or an error onhe and his staff's part,

(17:24):
and he immediately turned themover. There's no resistance,
no obstruction to the government'sefforts to get those back. Without any
evidence that Mike Pence had tried todeprive the government of those materials
intentionally. There isessentially no criminal case there.
That's why the investigation of Mike Penceended in a declination rather than an

(17:45):
indictment. So now let's talk aboutHillary Clinton just for a second.
Hillary Clinton,
while Secretary of State useda personal email server rather
than the one provided by the StateDepartment, that was a poor decision,
but nonetheless, that's what she did.
The FBI investigated her use of thatserver at the request of the State
Department Inspector General. Weall know, uh, the basic facts.

(18:08):
Hillary Clinton and herattorneys voluntarily went through all of her emails,
which they estimated to be about 60,000.
They determined which ones werework related, and therefore,
state Department property turned thoseover about 30,000 and the remainder of
the other 30,000, theyclaimed they were personal,
and so they were retainedand ultimately destroyed.

(18:29):
When the FBI came in to investigate,
we of course looked through all ofthe 30,000 emails that were returned.
We also conducted an incrediblyextensive investigation to recover
as many of the other emailsas we possibly could,
and we found thousands of those as well.From the entirety of all those emails,
what we found were about60 email conversations that

(18:52):
included classified material. Somewherearound 38, if I have my numbers correct,
were secret. I think there were eightto 12 or so that were top secret,
about 35 to 40 that wereat the secret level,
and then a few that wereat the confidential level.
What we didn't find with Hillary Clinton'suse of her private email server was
any indication that she intentionally,

(19:14):
intentionally discussed classifiedmaterial in any of those tens
of thousands of emails. Therewas no clear evidence of intent.
She also cooperatedwith the investigation,
provided us access tothe emails that they had,
and also to the devices that she used,
the ones she still hadto process that material.

(19:34):
I think it's also worth pointing outthat none of the emails that we recovered
from Hillary Clinton, these werenot classified documents. Right.
They weren't drafted with headers andfooters and classified markings and
portion markings on every paragraph.
Those are the sorts of things that youexpect to see in a classified document.
This was just email conversationswith her communicants that included

(19:57):
material that we determinedwas probably classified.
That information was probablypart of a classified (Gregory Washington) I see,
I see the difference (Andrew McCabe) document whenshe sent the email. So it's a very,
very different set of circumstances.
(Gregory Washington) So this wasn't the retention ofdocuments that are marked top secret.
?
On the top andthe bottom right?

(20:18):
There were no attachments that hadthis top secret stuff all over him.
Is that that what you're saying?
(Andrew McCabe) That's exactly right. There was, I think,
one email that had what we thoughtwere portion markings on the paragraph.
So in other words,
maybe it had been cut out of a documentand pasted into an email. But again,
it wasn't stamped with any sortof clear classification on it.

(20:39):
These were people who were bringinginformation to the attention of Hillary
Clinton in the course of her duties anderring in what they were putting in this
unclassified email server andin their email communications.
There's no question.
There was all kinds of things thatthey should have done differently here,
but what we couldn't say at the end ofthe investigation was that there was any

(20:59):
clear evidence of an intent totraffic in classified information, to
exchange classified information or totake classified information and put it
someplace it shouldn't be.
And so that's why we didn't request thatthe department pursue an indictment.
The department reviewed our findingsand agreed with that. I know that many,
many people disagree with thatconclusion. In a free and fair democracy,

(21:21):
people should know what wedid, how we did our work.
They should have the abilityto criticize our decisions,
our judgment to ask forexplanations of these things.
But what's not fair or accurate,
what does not contribute to the public'sunderstanding is to make these
headline comparisons of youdidn't prosecute Hillary Clinton,

(21:43):
so you shouldn't prosecute Donald Trump.
That's not the way oursystem of justice works.
If I rob a bank on the way home andI'm seen on video and I get arrested,
I can't go into court andraise as a defense. Well,
there was another bank robbed thatweek and you didn't arrest that guy,
so you should let me go aswell. It doesn't work that way.
Every case is evaluated on itsown facts and under the law that

(22:08):
applies to that case. And these two cases,
Hillary Clinton email investigation andthe Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago documents
investigation are very,very different.
(Gregory Washington) Now what about the Joe Biden, uh.
case? (Andrew McCabe) Yeah, so that's a great question.
So we don't know a lot about whatthey're finding in that investigation.
The attorney general appointed, uh,

(22:29):
special counsel to investigatethe current president.
I think that was the right call.He appointed a guy named Rob Hur,
who was a DOJ official in the Trumpadministration. For all we know,
he's been conducting his investigationvery quietly because there hasn't been
much public discussionabout what he's found yet.
I don't think we've seen anypublicly available court findings.

(22:50):
So we'll see if Rob Hur, who Iknow from my past experience,
if Rob Hur finds reason tobelieve that the president or his
staff violated the law and can showevidence to prove that there are
intentional violations of the law, Iexpect that he'll recommend an indictment.
But whether or not he findsthat evidence of intent,

(23:11):
that's always the hardestthing in these document cases.
People make mistakes and take thingshome, and then they find them,
and most people try to give themback. That happens all the time.
Those cases never get prosecutedbecause there's no evidence of intent.
If they find evidenceof intent here, though,
I expect a charge would be forthcoming,but we just don't know yet.
(Gregory Washington) So let's talk about this a littlebit and uh, little bit more detail,

(23:32):
but from a slightly different perspective.
You're hearingthese attackson government. They've been a steady drumbeat.
They actually go back even beforeyou with Comey and many of the
others.
So many of these people who are runningin the 2024 election against President
Trump have come to his defense. Theyhave attacked a special counsel.

(23:52):
I've heard words like weaponizationof the Justice Department.
My feeling is that that is causinga certain level of distrust
and a certain level of anger in many cases,
against those entities that are putin place to protect and support us.
What is your response to that?

(24:14):
(Andrew McCabe) I think you're exactly right.
There is no question that apublic trust in the institutions
like the Department of Justiceand the FBI, institutions
we depend upon to protectand defend our democracy,
to help us maintain this democraticexperiment are under relentless
attack. And the result of thosepersistent attacks, I think,

(24:37):
is eroding public trust in a veryconcerning and corrosive way.
And you're right, this is not brand new.
It's not novel to hear complaints,particularly from the political community.
Anytime the bureau and the departmentare poking into matters that
impact politics, it's usually the entity,whether it's Republican or Democrat,

(25:00):
that's on the pointy end of thatinvestigation.
That you hear the complaints from.
And that's a probably anormal human reaction.
And there's a certain amount of thatthat we've always had that I think is
understandable and and sustainable.
What's changed is thedirect assault from the head
of the executive branch that thedepartment and the FBI experienced

(25:22):
during the Trump administrationthat raised this level of attacks to something I
don't believe we've ever seen before.
It also strangely put theRepublican party on this side of
the antagonist of law enforcement andof justice and of the justice system,
which is.
(Gregory Washington) Never before in the history.
(Andrew McCabe) That's right.
(Gregory Washington) Never before in the historyhas that, at least in modern history,

(25:46):
post civil rights erahistory has that actually been the case?
(Andrew McCabe) That's right.
(Gregory Washington) The Republican Party has always beenthe party in support of law enforcement.
(Andrew McCabe) Taken a lot of pride inthinking of themselves as the,
as the party of law and order.
So this is a very strange timefor people in law enforcement.
And I think that this is somethingthat Donald Trump kind of normalized,

(26:07):
for lack of a better word.
these routine attacks oncases, on investigations,
on individuals like myself and JamesComey and others have now become
kind of an accepted part ofthe process. And with that,
you now see the president'ssupporters on Capitol Hill,
particularly in the House, are reallyraising that to the next level.

(26:27):
And that's why you've, we havesomething like this, I don't know,
awkwardly named, I guess,committee in the house,
empaneled to investigate the weaponizationof, of the Department of Justice,
like a committee in panel to investigatewhat they've concluded and named their
committee about, I guess if.
(Gregory Washington) Which is interesting, right?
(Andrew McCabe) Yeah. It's, uh, a bit of, uh,pre-judgment there. But nevertheless,

(26:50):
I can tell you from my own experiencein government, 21 years in the FBI,
obviously working closely withcolleagues in the Department of Justice,
you may not like what DOJ or theFBI is doing at any given moment.
And neither entity is perfect.They both make mistakes.
I made mistakes while I wasthere, my colleagues did as well.
That'll always happen. It's anorganization of human beings.

(27:12):
But what the FBI and the departmentdon't do is open and close
investigations to help or hurtdifferent political parties.
And I know that I may be the lastperson standing by myself in the forest
shouting that , everyoneelse has abandoned that idea.
But I will never give itup because across 21 years,
that's just not somethingI ever experienced.

(27:33):
Not in my own work and notin the people I supervised.
And I think that the indictment thatwe saw this week about the Mar-a-Lago
documents case is a perfectexample of that, many,
many people do not like the factthat Donald Trump has been indicted.
And I understand that he's their preferredcandidate, their preferred leader,
and those breathless,
but ultimately baseless comparisons ofwhy not Hillary? Why not Mike Pence?

(27:57):
Why not Joe Biden don't helpthat status of polarization.
But read the indictment. DonaldTrump was not indicted for politics.
Donald Trump was indicted because he hadhundreds of highly classified documents
in his presence.
He was asked for them numerous timesby different government agencies.
He refused to give them back.
He personally decided to review thosedocuments and made the decision to keep

(28:21):
them. He showed them to other peopleand acknowledged the fact that they were
classified and that he hadnever declassified them.
And then he deceived his own attorneyto ensure that documents would not be
returned in response to the subpoenathat he had been served with.
That's why he was indicted. Now,
you may still hope that hebecomes the next president.
You have every right to that preferenceand to express it and with your vote.

(28:45):
But this is what the government wasable to convince a grand jury of Donald
Trump's peers in Florida,
that there was enough evidence to provethat there was probable cause to believe
that he committed these offenses.
And so now we must step back andlet the criminal justice system work
through this issue to come to aresolution that's just an accurate,

(29:06):
whether it's conviction or acquittal.
(Gregory Washington) It's not just about Donald Trumpin the FBI in the documents,
right?
I'm thinking of the time when DonaldTrump and the Republican congressmen who
endorsed defunding the FBI and,
and as it relates to this recent specialcounsel report that suggested that the

(29:26):
FBI failed to uphold its mission.
And that's in quotes in the investigationof Russian interference in the
2016 Trump campaign. And you wereacting director of FBI at the time.
It's interesting. I was listeningto CNBC this morning.
on the way in to work,and Mike Pence brought this issue up.

(29:46):
Can you give some feedback asto that, what happened there?
What is the whole story?
(Andrew McCabe) All right. So let's talk aboutthat special counsel report.
That's the report written by thenspecial counsel, John Durham,
okay? John Durham. Despitehis solid reputation historically,
John Durham was brought in by WilliamBarr, then Attorney General Barr,

(30:07):
for the purpose of settling politicalscores for Donald Trump. Full stop.
This was never a legitimateinvestigation. And how do we know that?
Because John Durham and WilliamBarr announced their conclusions
of what they would find in theinvestigation at its inception.
Both made public comments that theythought that we had engaged in wrongdoing

(30:29):
and that we would be,
those of us involved in these issueswould be prosecuted criminally.
And John Durham then spent yearsand millions of dollars literally
traveling around the world trying toprove these theories that he brought to
this investigation. And none of them,he was not able to prove any of them.
And the reason he wasn't,
it wasn't because he didn't work hardenough or didn't spend enough money or

(30:51):
take enough time. He didn't prove thosetheories because they never happened.
And every other investigation ofour work, and there have been many,
the Department of Justiceinspector General, the Senate Intelligence Committee,
which is then chaired by a Republican.
The work of the MuellerSpecial Counsel probe,
every one of those investigationsbore out the fact that we were

(31:15):
correct in opening the caseto investigate whether or not
anyone from the Trump campaign in 2016had coordinated with the government of
Russia.
And that I was correct in lateradding Donald Trump as a personal
subject in that case. As weknow from the Mueller report,
we had information and were concernedthat there might have been a national

(31:37):
security threat,
and that Donald Trump as presidentmay have committed a federal crime,
that being obstruction of justice.
And you can read the Mueller report tosee exactly what they found about that.
But all those very differentinvestigations concluded the same thing,
that we had ample reasonto open those cases.
The only outlier is John Durhamwho will say in the headline that

(31:59):
he felt we failed to meet our mission.
And when you get into thedetails of that report,
his position is that we should haveopened a preliminary investigation instead
of a full field investigation.
This is an esoteric andinsignificant difference that
really only employeesof the FBI understand.
So I guess he thinks we should haveopened a preliminary investigation,

(32:20):
run that for a month, and thenelevated it to a full investigation.
That's great. He disagreeswith our position. He has,
has his right to that opinion. Theend of the day, all that effort,
all that time, all that money hemounted, two prosecutions, both failed.
The only conviction he has to show forhis efforts is that of Kevin Clinesmith,
who committed a grave error as an FBIlawyer and whose malfeasance was

(32:44):
uncovered,not by John Durham,
but by the Department of JusticeInspector General. So yeah,
I think as you can probablytell from my answer,
I don't have any respect forthat report or its author.
It was flawed and politicallymotivated from the very beginning,
and that's exactly where it ended up.
(Gregory Washington) Well, there's nothing else thenfor me to say about that.

(33:07):
(Andrew McCabe) I told you I'm happyto answer any question about anything.
(Gregory Washington) No, this is, this is great. Look,let me shift gears just a little bit,
because clearly you've dedicatedyour life to government
service.
(Andrew McCabe) That's right.
Talk a little bit aboutyour trajectory, you know,
all the way up through thetime that you retired.
And I guess they're near the endwhere we got into the politics

(33:31):
of things. As someone who haddedicated their life to service,
to then have the levelof conflict between the
president and the FBI,
can you talk about on thetail end of that service,
how did that make you feelabout your actual choice to

(33:52):
serve in that manner?And where does it leave you now?
Do you have any regrets?
(Andrew McCabe) You know, I joke about thiswith my students. I probably,
over the course of the semester,
I make multiple pitches to encouragethem to continue to pursue careers in
government. And then I say, admittedly,I may be the worst poster child,
the the worst recruiter fora career in government of,

(34:13):
of anybody you can thinkof. But in other ways,
I think I'm the best simply becausehaving gone through a really hard time at
the end of my career
I can still sit here and tell you thatI absolutely treasure every day of that
opportunity, every day of that experience.And I would do it all again tomorrow.
But just to kind of summarize it,

(34:33):
I went to law school at WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis,
worked for the Department of Justiceduring the summer before my last year in
law school. Developed thisinterest in the FBI by doing that.
Ultimately worked in privatepractice for a few years,
and then went into the bureau in '96.
Spent the first half of my careerdoing criminal work in New York City,
organized crime work, most actuallyexclusively Russian organized crime work.

(34:55):
And then I came to headquarters in 2006and started doing national security
stuff. I didn't know a singlehuman being in the FBI.
When I entered theorganization, 37,000 employees,
I had the unbelievableluck to serve really at
every single level that an agentcan serve, from coming in as just

(35:16):
a GS10 street agent.
all the way up to beingacting director in those many different
positions
I had the great opportunityto see the majesty of not
just the most righteous mission,I believe in this country,
protecting the American peopleand upholding the constitution,
but also to work with this incrediblegroup of people who were all drawn to that

(35:39):
mission and joined theorganization for that reason.
I wouldn't trade that for the world.You know, when I left in 2018,
that summer,
I wrote the book that you graciouslymentioned at the beginning of the podcast.
And really, it was a very toughtime. It was very hard on,
on me and on my family;
the circumstances under which I leftgetting fired essentially by the president

(36:02):
having been hectored and kind ofterrorized by him for months in his social
media postings. And then ultimatelygetting fired 24 hours before I,
I was supposed to retire. And with that,
losing my pension and benefits and myconnection to the organization and my
ability really even to communicatewith the friends and colleagues I put

(36:23):
together over 21 years,it was just crushing.
But writing the book forced me tolook beyond that tough experience
and to really appreciate the significanceand the joy of the entirety of
my career. You know, I kind of buriedmyself in the work for many months,
and I think that kind of gotme through that summer anyway.
And when I look back, I've spent a lotof time thinking about those decisions,

(36:46):
particularly in 2016 and '17,
that really built towardsthat sort of an ignominious end.
There are a few things that I thinkI wish we had done differently,
but I don't have anyregrets. The reason I,
I was fired because I did what Ibelieved was my job and my obligation
to my organization and to my country.

(37:07):
And I don't see that anydifferently today. And I would do the same thing again.
And I think it's really importantthat people who serve in government,
particularly at high levels,
where you are responsiblefor the direction of your agency and and responsible
for the people that you lead,
you have to be willing to standon principle and the law and

(37:28):
your ethics. And if that costs you yourjob because of some political nonsense,
then that's okay.
You have to be willing to walkaway to make the right decision,
the decision you believe in,
and to lose the job asa result of that stance.
I wouldn't do it any differently.
I think presented with thesame information we had then, which was limited,

(37:49):
but very concerning,
I felt we had an obligation to openthe cases we did. I knew at that time,
opening a case on the president wouldbe bring nothing but grief, ,
and peril. I guess I was rightabout that , but you know.
(Gregory Washington) Absolutely.
Absolutely. (Andrew McCabe) You know, I I, I wouldn'tdo it any differently. I understand.
I really wouldn't understand. It's aprivilege to be able to do those things.

(38:09):
And you know, I still say topeople they should consider,
consider a career in government.
It's really unlikely tohappen the same way twice.
So don't worry what happened to me.
It won't happen to to youhappen to you. (Gregory Washington) No, I get you. I.
get you. (Andrew McCabe) But it's a great,great, great way to live.
It's so incredibly fulfilling andexciting and and impactful and

(38:30):
yeah, I wouldn't do any differently.
(Gregory Washington) Outstanding. To shift gears yet again,
so we hear a lot of debate aboutthe balance between public privacy
and safety.
You have described in one of your jobsas an agent in New York after 9/11 as
being part of an effort to do clearanceinvestigations on people who were

(38:50):
detained because oftheir immigration status.
So can you give us a thumbnailof your duties in that context,
and what is the balancingact for law enforcement,
especially in times of crisisbetween privacy and liberty? And I,
and I bring this up because asa university, believe it or not,
we are caught in the midstof many of these issues.

(39:11):
We have a large foreign population here,students who come seeking an education,
but there could be some who may comefor more nefarious purposes.
And so if you can talka little bit about that.
(Andrew McCabe) Yeah, sure.
So the post 9/11 situation I refer toin the book was I was a criminal agent
on a Russian organized crime squad.
I was on the SWAT team andhad been detailed out to SWAT duty for about a month

(39:34):
after, uh, 9/11.
And then everybody was working the9/11 case in one way or another.
And the attorney general hadessentially in a public announcement,
changed the way the federal governmentinteracted with people who were here
in the United States illegally.
So people who had maybe overstayed theirvisas or weren't here on valid kind of

(39:56):
immigration status. As a prior to 9/11,
there wasn't a very aggressive enforcementeffort to find those people and to
deport them. But in the wakeof 9/11 with, you know,
almost 3000 Americans dead at thehands of a foreign terrorist group,
and really the law enforcementintelligence community really kind of on their

(40:16):
heels trying to figure out how wehad missed this immense tragedy,
this disaster. The governmentwent into overdrive in many ways.
And one of them was that the AttorneyGeneral decided that any persons that we
interacted with in the courseof investigating 9/11,
whether they were related to it or not,
if we were out conducting an interviewand we came across a person who admitted

(40:40):
that they no longer hadlegal immigration status,
that those people would be taken intocustody and ultimately processed for
deportation. But before they weredeported, we would have to, and I quote,
clear them for ties toterrorism. So slowly at first,
but then with greater speed,
people started getting detained in andaround New York and in many places around

(41:01):
the country. So the FBI, New YorkField office where I was working,
put together a small groupof agents and said, Hey,
clear these people forterrorism. And quite frankly,
we didn't really a bunch of, you know,Russian OC guys, we didn't really have,
uh, much of an idea how to do that.
So we came up with a process to run allsorts of records checks to send requests
to other agencies for any informationthat we had about these people.

(41:24):
And we tried to do what we had beenasked to do. And it took way too long.
And there were way too many people hadbeen detained for really not doing much
at all other than simplyoverstaying a visa. And ultimately,
they were housed in places likecounty jails across New Jersey
where the federal government had torent space because they were literally

(41:44):
detaining more people than wehad the capacity to hold on to.
And those people weretreated really poorly.
You can imagine being arrested anddetained in the course of the 9/11
investigation and thrown into generalpopulation in a state prison.
These people, many ofthem really suffered.
And we struggled to try to dowhat we've been asked to do.

(42:07):
And the process really held people forfar too long in adverse circumstances.
I gave a talk recently to Mastersof Public Policy students at Duke
University, and we were talkingabout different policies and my how,
my own experience trying to executepolicies that were poorly thought out
and incompletely communicated to thepeople responsible for actually doing the

(42:27):
work. And I use this as myexample as one of those,
how we learned thingsthrough this policy process,
even as an agent on the ground in NewYork. So it was frustrating for us,
but really much worse for the peoplethat we interacted with. And ultimately,
the whole thing was kind of shut down andthere'd been a lot of litigation about
it. I think you're in a toughspot here, sir, running a,

(42:49):
a major university because (Gregory Washington) Tellme about it. (Andrew McCabe) Yeah, it's, you know,
there are some legitimate threats thatas the leader of a large organization
with a deep investment in technologyand responsible for creating an
environment where academics andstudents can interact and benefit
from open communications andsharing of work and writings and

(43:11):
data and things like that, that'swhat you want at a university.
But we also know that some of ouradversaries try to take advantage of that
great American opportunity, to takeadvantage of the unique talent
and development and research thatcomes up from our major institutions.
And so at the FBI,
we spend a lot of time trying to counselpeople like you and people in your

(43:34):
position to try to think about thingslike cybersecurity and data security.
And sometimes that results ininvestigative attention on certain
individuals in the academicworld. To be clear,
we've had kind of anuneven history with that.
There have been people who have beeninvestigated and put through that ringer
unfairly,

(43:55):
but there have been many others who wewere fortunate to find and investigate
and prosecute. So that'sa very tough balance.
And as with every one of thesequestions of privacy versus security,
the FBI, law enforcement,
intelligence agencies are always gonnabe on the side of active aggressive
enforcement. That's their job.

(44:15):
I think the hard thing is figuringout that balance of security versus
privacy.
is probably not somethingthat we should leave up to the FBI or
any law enforcement entity.
It's something that we need ourelected representatives to weigh in on.
And I don't think we've gotten nearlyenough leadership from them on that

(44:35):
count.
(Gregory Washington) So as we wrap up here, speaking of safety,
in the first five months of 2023,
there were 25 mass shootings in theUS and that breaks out to about and
shootings in which four or more peoplewere actually killed, okay? And so,
according to a database by theAssociated Press, USA Today and
Northeastern University, thatis a record setting pace.

(44:59):
How much of your time at the FBIwas consumed with gun violence?
(Andrew McCabe) An enormous amount. I mean,
what you've cited isjust one more symptom of
a situation that we have in this countryas a direct result of the fact that
we are awash in guns.
We are the only nation on earththat has 120 guns for every

(45:22):
hundred people.
There are more guns in this country thanthere are citizens. In that statistic
the second highest nation gunsper hundred people on Earth
is the Falkland Islands at60 per hundred. And I mean,
do we really compare ourselveswith the Falkland Islands?
Third behind the FalklandIslands is Yemen.
So it's hard to get people to understandhow many more firearms there are in

(45:44):
this country.
And I know that we have a longhistory with independence and freedom,
and those concepts are for manypeople intertwined with their
constitutional right to bear arms.
But it's also important thatwe recognize some other things.
I think the fact that we have so manyguns in this country has a negative impact
on many other things that we sufferwith, not just mass shootings,

(46:08):
but violent crime in general.Homicides in this country,
gun homicides in this country areoff the charts higher than other
comparable nations. Suicide byfirearm in this country is much,
much more prevalent than itis in comparable nations. Yes.
And mass shootings, obviously noplace else on earth experiences,

(46:29):
mass shootings the way that we do here,
and I would even argue many of theproblems that we currently have,
some of the things that we arealarmed about in law enforcement are
directly traceable to the fact that lawenforcement officers today know that
when they go out to a domestic callto pull somebody over on the street,

(46:50):
the chances are pretty good that thepeople that they're interacting with are
armed. And when you bring that sortof assumption to your work day to day,
you are elevating the likelihood thatpolice officers are going to feel like
they need to draw their gunsmore quickly
and resolve these situations withgunfire rather than deescalation.

(47:12):
So I think there are many thingshappening in this country that are to some
degree,
impacted and accelerated by ourstate of firearms ownership.
(Gregory Washington) No, I get it.
You've been hearing about artificialintelligence and the powers of artificial
intelligence. As ascientist, as a researcher,

(47:32):
let me draw a connection fromyou and get your reaction.
So in a recent Texas Mall shootingin which eight people were killed
and seven others werewounded, the shooter was a)
out of the military formental health issues,
B) frequented social mediaplatforms that praise Nazism and
white supremacy, and c), he wasable to buy his guns legally.

(47:55):
One of the things that we doas a researcher in artificial
intelligence is we let thedata highlight patterns.
And from a practical standpoint,
I believe that while it might bedifficult for law enforcement to draw the
Dot connections Yep. Toan individual like that,

(48:15):
I think it's reasonablyeasier for computers to do so,
especially with the needfor artificial intelligence.
Is this something that's plausible?
Is this something that could beused to help law enforcement?
Because what happens whenthere's a mass shooting?
We go through and we dothe background, immediately,
get the background of the person,

(48:35):
and most times there are redflags that are in abundance.
And so if we're not gonnado anything with the guns,
and I get why people avoid that issueand don't want to, we got other tools.
How about using some of these other toolsto help us from the perspective of at
least helping people have an understandingof where the actual threats are.
(Andrew McCabe) There are many more opportunitieswith artificial intelligence than,

(48:58):
certainly than I'm capableof, of imagining. And I,
I think you've honed in onwhat's most relevant about AI,
and that is our cyber system'sability to aggregate data and
analyze it for those sorts ofcommonalities, trends.
that would takehuman beings much longer to do.

(49:18):
And so there's got to be someways to move that technology
forward in a productive way.On this issue. As always,
the problem is what can youpossibly do with those trends,
those suggestions, that targeting?
Can you use that data and thoseconclusions to deny people access to

(49:40):
firearms? Probably not,
in the way thatfirearms laws are currently written,
probably not. Even just on themental health factor, the, uh,
excluders the things that cancause you to fail the background
check and therefore be prohibitedfrom purchasing a firearm,
the mental health prohibitor,requires an adjudication of mental

(50:03):
defective.
So you act have to actually have beenessentially involuntarily committed by a
court before your mental health issuesprohibit you from buying a firearm.
It's not simply enough tobe depressed, alienated,
looking at questionable stuff online.
Sometimes those are helpful indicatorsto investigators.

(50:23):
but the question on the policy level,
we need to determine what are wegonna do with that data and with those
conclusions? And right now,
we're not really in a goodposition to do much different.
(Gregory Washington) No, I get you. But, and youbring up something else, right?
The assumption that people make is,oh, well, it's a mental health problem,
but the way you just described it,
you're way down the lineof a diagnosis of mental

(50:46):
health.
(Andrew McCabe) That's absolutely.
(Gregory Washington) In order to stop youfrom buying a gun.
(Andrew McCabe) Right. We say that aboutmass shooters, like, well,
this person clearly was sufferingwith mental health issues. Sure.
But it's almost irrelevant.
(Gregory Washington) Right.
Because those mental healthissues wouldn't deny you from getting a firearm in
the first place is what I think I
hear you saying. (Andrew McCabe) absolutely not,
not unless you'd been in front ofa judge and they had sent you to a,

(51:08):
sent you to a facility and issuedan order along those lines.
(Gregory Washington) Okay. So last question.
What would you say was the lowest andhighest points of your FBI career?
(Andrew McCabe) , you saved the hardestone for last . Oh, wow.
Um, I had so many high points. There'sno way I could pick just one.

(51:29):
First big arrestas a new agent in New York.
My first big case wasa organized crime case.
And I remember wrapping those guys upafter a long investigation and working
with informants and makingconfidential recordings and things.
I remember what thatfelt like to this day.
I remember going as deputy director andswearing in my first class of new agents.

(51:50):
My career, I was very lucky.
My career was filled with incrediblemoments that I'll never forget.
Lowest point, I,
it's pretty obvious walking outon a cold day in January when,
uh, I'd essentially, essentiallybeen kind of thrown out of my,
my job before I was fired inMarch. That was incredibly,
incredibly sad. And I was, I wasvery sad and humiliating and,

(52:15):
and just on a kind of a sickeninglevel. So I remember that as well.
I wish I could forget that one, but, unfortunately, I can't.
But you know what, likeall things you move on.
And I've been very fortunate to haverecreated now a new life after the FBI.
I get to still talk about and analyzelaw enforcement and intelligence issues
that fascinate me. I get to teach thesewonderful students at George Mason.

(52:39):
(Gregory Washington) And that's what I love there.
(Andrew McCabe) It's all good. It all comes around.
If you work hard enough and just keepshooting at what makes you truly happy,
then uh, things work out.
(Gregory Washington) Outstanding. Outstanding.Well, Andrew McCabe,
we are truly thankful for you being apart of the conversation here at George
Mason University. I am PresidentGregory Washington saying,

(52:59):
until next time, stay safe, Mason Nation.
(Narrator) If you like what you heard on thispodcast, go to podcast.gmu.edu.
For more of Gregory Washington'sconversations with the thought leaders,
experts,
and educators who take onthe grand challenges facing our students graduates in
higher education. That's podcast.gmu.edu.