CNN Hires Fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as Contributor
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe is joining CNN as an on-air contributor, the network’s media reporter Oliver Darcy announced Friday.
McCabe was fired from the FBI in March 2018 after the Department of Justice’s inspector general revealed that he’d repeatedly lied under oath to investigators about his role in leaking information on the bureau’s Clinton Foundation investigation to the Wall Street Journal. The Inspector General referred the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office for investigation and McCabe may still face criminal charges.
The 21-year FBI veteran maintains his innocence, arguing that he was misunderstood and tried to correct the record. He filed suit against the Trump administration in U.S. District Court in Washington earlier this month, alleging that his dismissal was “politically motivated and retaliatory.”
President Trump routinely disparaged McCabe as a political partisan during his time in the administration, often invoking his wife, Jill McCabe, who ran unsuccessfully for state senate in Virginia as a Democrat in 2015.
Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) mocked CNN’s commitment to honest journalism in response to McCabe’s hiring.
The guy who DOJ inspector general found committed federal crimes & is a serial liar? Good work, CNN. Love to see that commitment to serious journalism https://t.co/rHfBB9aLVW
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 23, 2019
The news of McCabe’s hiring comes just one day after CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter chastised Fox News for hiring former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
“The Trump White House has a record of misleading the public. All administrations spin. This administration lies consistently, whether it’s Sanders, or Spicer, or other White House aides. And it’s all led from the top by a president who lies even about the weather and the time of day. That, I think, is why this deserves outrage and backlash,” Stelter said.
