Former FBI director fired by Trump says probe of his campaign not meant ‘to stage a coup’

'We had many reasons to think the president … might pose a threat to national security,” Mr McCabe tells GOP-run panel

A former FBI director fired by the Trump administration denied again on Tuesday the Justice Department launched an investigation that included Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign “to stage a coup.”

“Let me be very clear. We didn’t open a case because we liked one candidate or didn’t like the other one. We didn’t open a case because we intended to stage a coup or overthrow the government,” Andrew McCabe told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“We didn’t open a case because we thought it might be interesting or because we wanted to drag the FBI into a heated political contest,” he added. “We opened a case to find out how the Russians might be undermining our elections. We opened a case because it was our obligation — our duty — to do so. We did our job.”

That came during Mr McCabe’s opening statement before Chairman Lindsey Graham peppered him with an aggressive line of questioning about FISA Court errors and what top Justice Department officials knew and when. At several points, the former FBI boss said he would like to respond fully but Mr Graham was interrupting him too often.

He also told the GOP-run panel that top Justice Department officials worried about the motivations behind Mr Trump’s actions once he took office, including firing law enforcement officials and tweets about DOJ actions.

“We had many reasons to think the president … might pose a threat to national security,” Mr McCabe said, “if we thought those actions were related to stopping our investigation of Russian” election meddling.

Mr Graham described an out-of-control, by his view, Justice Department eager to prevent Mr Trump from becoming president then undermining him once he took office. He called for new rules of the road for counterintelligence probes, since that is what the Russia election meddling investigation began as.

He also asked if, knowing what he knows now, he would have asked for a FISA warrant for former Trump adviser Carter Page, Mr McCabe said no.

Mr Page was never convicted of any crimes, which Mr Trump has used to claim his first campaign was illegally spied on.

Even as Senate Republicans continue to look into the FBI’s handling of the Russia probe, panel member John Cornyn said he doubts anyone involved “will ever be held accountable.”