>> He's the former Acting Director of the FBI who now says the President may a Russian asset, this week on "Firing Line."

As number 2 at the FBI during the 2016 presidential campaign, Andrew McCabe investigated both Russian election interference and Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

>> Comey knew everything that was going on.

You think McCabe didn't tell him everything?

Comey was the ringleader of this whole den of thieves.

>> When President Trump fired James Comey, McCabe stepped in as FBI leader and defended his former boss.

>> I can tell you that I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard.

You cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing.

>> McCabe insists he did the right thing by opening a counterintelligence investigation into the President.

But the President says the country's former top cop is a liar, a disgrace, even treasonous.

What does Andrew McCabe say now?

>> "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible by... Corporate funding is provided by... ...and by... >> Welcome to "Firing Line," Andrew McCabe.

>> Thank you.

It's great to be here.

>> You are the former Acting Director of the FBI and the Deputy Director of the FBI.

And you were in the FBI for 21 years before you were fired just 26 hours before you were set to retire.

>> That's right.

>> You've now written a book that is called "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump."

That's a provocative title.

>> It is, it is.

>> Intentionally.

>> Intentionally.

These are provocative times.

>> Are you equating the President with terror?

>> Not exactly, but I do believe the President is making it harder for the men and women of the FBI to protect this country every day.

>> There has been a lot of reaction to your book, including President Trump which you must have expected.

>> Yeah.

>> One tweet stands out in particular, and it reads... You must have expected the President to attack you, but treason?

>> You know, the President's been attacking me since October of 2016, so, yes, I did expect it.

I expected it would happen, and I knew it would be false, filled with mis-statements and lies.

But to use the words "coup" and "treason," as I know the President and some others have, and it's really incredibly inflammatory, it is totally false, but it's a way to attract attention to the part of the story that the President would like people to focus on rather than addressing the facts that are in the book.

>> You, in the book, write that, on occasion, you found yourself in the White House with the President wondering in hindsight whether you could've been more forceful or more direct with him.

>> That's right.

>> If you were in the Oval Office with him now, hypothetically, what would you say to him?

>> I don't expect I'll ever get this opportunity -- >> I don't expect you will, either, but what would you if you did?

>> I think I would caution the President away from the relentless attacks that he's been subjecting the men and women in law enforcement and intelligence to over the last two years.

I think what the President has said and his behavior in that regard is incredibly corrosive to the work that's essential to the maintenance of a free and fair society and one that we all wish to live in.

>> So, you established yourself early in your tenure at the FBI in organized crime related to Russian organized crime.

>> That's right.

>> And one of the early cases that you followed was the case of the Russian individual who fixed the Salt Lake City figure-skating competition.

>> Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.

Yeah, fascinating case.

We had information that this notable Russian gangster, notable Russian wiseguy, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, had actually bribed Olympics officials to secure a gold medal for the Russian pairs figure skating team.

It's just a seemingly preposterous set of circumstances, but as we got down into it, we realized that's, in fact, what happened.

>> One of the things your book revealed, which I found fascinating, is that that same individual, Tokhtakhounov, was later indicted in connection with a money-laundering scheme and a gambling circle that he operated out of Trump Tower.

>> That's right.

That's right.

>> What do you make of that now?

>> I think it captures so well this strange and incredible arc to my career, that I began investigating Russian organized crime, and as I got to the very end of my career, these same characters, these same figures were re-emerging from my past in the context of investigating potential Russian influence in the 2016 election.

>> You worked alongside Jim Comey very closely.

Was he a good boss?

>> Jim Comey was a very good boss.

I think Jim Comey was a very good Director of the FBI.

I learned a lot working for Jim Comey, and I value his contributions to the organization.

>> Are you still in touch with him?

>> I am not in touch with Jim today.

>> Why?

>> You know, Jim and I were very close professional associates.

We weren't really friends outside of work, so that's -- We no longer work together, so we don't see each other.

>> Up until the 2016 election, you had voted for Republican presidents.

>> I did.

>> You didn't vote in 2016.

So you don't consider yourself a Republican anymore?

>> I don't today.

You know, obviously, I have some deep concerns with the way the Republican party has embraced this president and failed to stand up to him.

>> When you were inside the FBI as Deputy Director, the President tweeted... What was the reaction inside the Bureau to the personal attacks against Jim Comey and then to finally his firing?

>> Very negative.

Very negative.

Jim enjoyed an incredibly positive reputation -- not just a reputation within the FBI but an incredibly positive relationship with FBI people.

So when Jim was fired, people were shocked and distressed, and I don't think anyone appreciated the negative messages.

>> Why has the FBI become such a lightning rod, in terms of politics in recent years?

>> Two things, I think, Margaret.

We found ourselves in the middle of some incredibly politically charged investigations, through no intent or fault of ours or anybody else's, but that's the work that we do, and we stepped up and did it.

And it was unfortunate that, in those investigations, people were -- >> Which investigations are you specifically referring to?

>> Of course the Hillary Clinton e-mail case and then our efforts to investigate Russian influence in the election.

>> Can I just reference as a counterpoint, in the 1990s, during the Clinton administration, the FBI was also investigating the president of the United States and his associates.

It seems the Bureau wasn't as politicized at that time.

Would you agree with that?

>> I think our entire environment is more politicized now, and I think that we have been kind of caught up in that, as well.

>> So you think the FBI wasn't as politicized in the '90s when it was investigating the president as it is now?

>> My perception, as a street agent here in New York, was not ever one that the FBI was driven by politics.

And I can tell you that, as Deputy Director, we didn't make our decisions based on politics, based on seeking political outcomes, and I think that's been borne out by very extensive investigations.

>> So, what about the recent political investigations has made the FBI more politicized?

>> I think our involvement in those investigations has been used by both sides for political advantage.

>> You write in the book about Loretta Lynch, President Obama's Attorney General, asking the FBI to refer not to the Clinton investigation as an investigation but as a matter.

>> Right.

>> The Obama administration politicized the FBI, in your view.

>> FBI people are always very wary of the impact of politics on the decisions that we make, and so I think we are, in those moments, with the one that you reference, the comments by Attorney General Lynch, we are quick to kind of get the hair up on the back of our neck and wonder if we are being -- if somebody is trying to influence the work we do for political reasons.

>> When you write a book about the FBI as the former number 1 at the FBI and make such strong political assertions about the current president, are you contributing to that politicization and that corrosion of the reputation of independence that the Federal Bureau of Investigations has had?

>> Yeah, that's a fair question.

But I have to tell you that, in these days, I think it is absolutely so important that the people in this country get to hear from someone in the FBI to counteract the false narratives that they've been hearing for the last two years.

If you had told me 10 years ago that it would be a regular occurrence in the media to hear the words "FBI" and "corruption" used in the same sentence, I would've said you were crazy.

Not possible.

That is not something that happens in the FBI that I know.

But these days, these are concepts that the public has started to treat as normal.

That troubles me deeply.

>> The kind of attacks that you discuss that the FBI is under, Special Counsel Mueller is under, too.

The President is tweeting about him, calling his investigation a witch hunt.

He is not saying anything.

In some ways, his lack of getting in the fight with the President has elevated his stature and has underlined the fact that he is independent.

>> I agree with your principle, but that, in fact, highlights the integrity and the strength that Director Mueller brings to that investigation.

But there's no doubt that, over the last several months, the general public's perception of the work that's happening on the Mueller team has become increasingly more negative.

And why is that?

I would argue, and I do argue in the book, that that is the result of these unrelenting attacks.

>> Do you think that Mueller will write a tell-all book when it's said and done?

Or is there just a different way of being an FBI professional which just involves not engaging in the public debate and the muck?

>> I don't know what Director Mueller will do.

My experiences with him lead me to suspect that he's not the tell-all type.

But Director Mueller and his family haven't endured the same sort of personal attacks over the last two years that mine have, so I'm in a bit of a different position from Director Mueller.

>> In 1976, William F. Buckley hosted an episode of "Firing Line" entitled "Subversion and the Law."

His two guests were Mark Felt, the person who held your job as the number 2 at the FBI and was later discovered to have been "Deep Throat" in the Watergate hearings, and the other guest was a lawyer by the name of Roy Cohn, who was a lawyer during the McCarthy hearings and was also a man who came to be a mentor for the current occupant of the Oval Office, Donald Trump.

Let's take a look at this clip about the politicization of the FBI.

>> Okay.

>> Does the notion of the FBI being "sacrificed on the altar of politics" ring true to you at all?

>> I wouldn't characterize it that way.

I wouldn't.

I think this is a remarkable clip, obviously one that I'm seeing just for the first time here.

It's a great example of the fact that this is an organization of human beings.

We don't get it right all the time, but we always try to get it right.

We have a checkered past like every large organization, and I think that's a testament to the fact that the FBI is an organization that learns and heals and changes when it finds that we've made a mistake and we need a course correction.

>> I'd like to turn to your wife, who is a pediatric physician in the emergency room in Virginia and perhaps the most famous former state senate candidate in America in the state of Virginia.

There is a picture of you wearing your wife's campaign T-shirt.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And you were not involved in her campaign, you didn't go to her events, but you did put on a T-shirt that one time, and that image got out.

Did you ever think when you put the T-shirt on that that could be a problem?

>> Never, never.

So, it's the summer of 2015, and my kids swim on our local community swim team, and my wife had received a box of those T-shirts from her parents that morning.

We were so excited by the arrival of these shirts, we all put one on.

Took a personal photograph that eventually made its way to the Internet.

>> But you're an FBI agent.

You know that no photo is ever a private photo.

>> Well, I'm an FBI agent, so I know that the Hatch Act specifies that the spouse of a candidate is perfectly free to wear a T-shirt, to put a sticker on their car as long as they do that activity in their private lives.

>> Should there be more guidance on behalf of the Bureau to individuals like yourselves whose spouses want to become involved politically?

>> I think it's an unbelievably rare event.

It certainly -- >> Bound to happen again.

>> I mean, I'll leave that up to Director Wray and the folks who run the FBI today to figure out how they'll deal with the IG's recommendation.

>> I understand that her race was over before you ever had any responsibility for the Clinton e-mail investigation.

>> Right.

>> But the question is, out of an excessive concern for optics and for the perception of impropriety, would it have just been safer to recuse yourself from any oversight of the Clinton e-mail investigation?

>> The standard for recusal is whether a person with knowledge of the facts would perceive that a conflict exists, and the opinion I received from my ethics professionals was that no person with knowledge of the facts would draw such a conclusion, so recusal was not called for under the circumstances.

It's important, also, I think, Margaret, to understand that each time a senior executive recuses from a matter, you have essentially deprived the organization of the leadership and the skills and the experience that you're supposed to impart to that work.

So it's not something -- it's not a matter we think about lightly, and that's why we have professionals to advise us.

>> Donald Trump frequently brought up your wife and you on the campaign trail.

Let's watch an example of some of the things that he said.

>> Sure.

>> One of the closest people to Hillary Clinton -- this just came out.

With longstanding ties to her and her husband.

Gave more than $675,000 to the wife of the Deputy FBI Director... ...overseeing the investigation into Hillary's illegal server.

We need to reopen the investigation.

>> What does it feel like as an individual to be bullied and targeted by the president of the United States?

>> Yeah, it's horrific.

It's horrific to sit back and listen to that, to hear these lies repeated again and again, to hear the president of the United States attacking my wife, who has spent her entire career helping her community, and to hear the president of the United States lie about her activities for his own political advantage, it's horrific.

>> Was it harder to hear him criticize her than the criticism of yourself?

>> Of course.

This is kind of stooping to a new low.

>> I guess the follow-up question is, could any reasonable person also expect someone in your position to be able to objectively oversee an investigation of a person who had criticized you publicly so much?

>> I think that people should understand that that sort of objectivity and neutrality comes to our work every day.

>> Even when the president of the United States singles you out scores of times?

>> That's right.

>> Goes after your wife.

You think you would've been able to objectively oversee an investigation of him?

>> I think there were a lot of challenges to overseeing that investigation.

I think putting it in the hands of the Special Counsel was the best way to handle that.

>> One of the elements that's been reported is that you opened up a counterintelligence investigation of the President in the moments after -- in the days after James Comey was fired.

>> Right.

>> Rod Rosenstein and you went to brief the Gang of Eight about the appointment of the Special Counsel and the opening of the counterintelligence investigation.

>> That's correct.

>> And the counterintelligence investigation became part of Special Counsel Mueller's investigation.

It got sort of scooped into it.

You were taken out of the line of authority by Rod Rosenstein, in terms of overseeing the Russia investigation after the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller.

Why was that?

>> You know, that's something that I saw in the DOJ statement in the last few days.

That is not something I ever experienced while I was serving as Acting Director.

>> So is it not true that Rod Rosenstein removed you from the chain of command of oversight of the Russian investigation after he appointed Special Counsel Mueller?

>> Rod Rosenstein never communicated anything like that to me during that time.

>> What happened in that briefing, when you briefed the Gang of Eight and you told them about the existence of a counterintelligence investigation into the President?

You write about how, at the time where you brief them about the appointment of the Special Counsel, they didn't ask any questions.

They were resigned.

But a counterintelligence investigation into the President that was looking at whether he was wittingly or unwittingly an agent of Russia, you say they didn't ask you any questions?

>> I'm not gonna walk through the exact details that I gave the congressional leadership at the time, but I will tell you, I fully briefed them on all the steps that we had taken, and I received no objections.

>> Was that counterintelligence investigation in the works before Director Comey was fired?

>> You know, it's a hard question to answer, and it's something that we debated hotly on the team from the moment that we opened the cases.

As you know from Director Comey's public announcement of that investigative effort, we were investigating essentially the campaign.

But to say you're investigating the campaign and not investigating the president is a very fine distinction to draw.

What we determined in May was that, with the firing of Director Comey and the comments that the President made about the firing and to the media and to the public, we then had undeniable circumstances and facts in our possession that led us to believe that a threat to national security might exist.

>> Because of the firing of Director Comey?

>> It was one of several things that we were considering.

Not just the fact that he was fired but also the fact that we'd been asked to discontinue our investigation of Mike Flynn, the President's statements and behavior and denigrating the investigation and talking about it in the way that he does clearly telegraphed to us that he was not happy with the work that we were doing.

And then, of course, he takes the step to fire the Director after we don't comply with his request to stop investigating Mike Flynn.

And then, he goes forward and tells the American people that he was thinking about Russian when he fired the Director.

So it was a remarkable set of circumstances and one that we felt put us in the position to be obligated to initiate an investigation.

>> To open a counterintelligence investigation of the president of the United States.

>> you write in your book that you and Rod Rosenstein had a couple of conversations whereby you were going to Rod Rosenstein and making the case proactively that he should appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the President.

>> That's right.

>> You also write that Rod Rosenstein at one point said, "If there were one person that I could talk to right now, the person I would want to talk to is Jim Comey."

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Anywhere in that process did you personally contact Jim Comey?

>> No.

>> Why?

>> I did not contact Jim Comey, so I didn't follow up on Rod's request.

It was something that I thought we just shouldn't do.

Jim is no longer a member of the government.

I had a conversation, discussed it with my attorneys and some of my advisers.

>> So you considered reaching out to him?

>> We talked about it, and all agreed that it was not something that we should do.

>> Are you more convinced or less convinced now of the President's contacts and potential relationships and influence by the Russians?

>> You know, I think the most that I can say is, I am convinced that we made the right decision in May of 2017.

I'm also struck by the progress that Director Mueller has made.

I mean, the progress of that investigation is undeniable.

And I anxiously await the results as I know every American does.

>> I'm gonna ask you one question.

You used this technique where you talk hypothetically in order to help articulate a position, and one of the things you say in your book is, "In theory, could the Attorney General also have been the target of an investigation?"

And you go on to delineate what Sessions did during the course of the campaign and his contacts with Russians.

And then, you say at the end... Are you telegraphing here that the FBI opened an investigation into Attorney General Sessions?

>> I am explaining what I believe the FBI's obligations would be under those circumstances.

>> Does that mean you opened an investigation into Attorney General Sessions?

>> Of course I'm not going to answer that question.

>> So I'm gonna take that as a yes.

>> So, you can conclude whatever you'd like from what I've written in the book.

>> Does everybody leak?

>> Do too many people leak?

Absolutely.

Is there too much government information that is being provided in unauthorized fashion to the media?

No question.

It's something that concerned me greatly, concerned Jim Comey greatly.

>> Do you think you were disproportionately punished for sharing information that was determined not to be in the public interest?

>> I think that I was unfairly punished.

I think that the results of that investigation are unlike anything I have ever seen in my experience reviewing and understanding IG investigations and Office of Professional Responsibility investigations over the course of my career.

I'd love to break the report out with you here and walk through point by point, although I'm sure -- >> Why can't you do that?

>> Your viewers would probably be bored to death.

I can't do it because I still have a number of legal issues that I'm working my way through.

I have my own lawsuit that I'll be bringing to challenge a lot of the circumstances around the way I left the Bureau, so I'm gonna let those actions speak for themselves.

>> You say the legal actions that are continuing, are you referring to the grand-jury investigation?

>> I am.

>> So there is a continuing grand-jury investigation into your case of having shared information with the press.

>> That's right.

>> That you continue to be involved in.

>> That's right.

And I point out to you -- >> Is there a chance that you could be indicted?

>> I think that chance exists in any investigation, but I honestly don't believe that that will happen here.

If the prosecutors follow the law and the facts, I'm confident that this will be resolved beneficially.

>> What's the best possible outcome for this presidency?

>> I don't know.

That's not really my -- That's not my place to determine.

That's a political result, and we'll get that resolution in the way that we always do.

I think the important thing to focus on now is protecting and supporting the work that Mueller is doing and understanding what he finds in his report.

>> All right.

Andrew McCabe, thank you for coming to "Firing Line."

>> Yeah, thank you very much.

Been great.

Thanks for reading the book.

>> "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible by... Corporate funding is provided by... ...and by... >> You're watching PBS.