Cummings slams GOP over questioning of deputy FBI director

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) tore into Republicans in a Thursday statement for their questioning of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, claiming they were only calling him in because they feared special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference.

Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said that GOP leaders “are terrified that Special Counsel Mueller is getting closer to the truth and that he already has guilty pleas in hand.”

“They are desperately trying to protect President Trump by attacking the credibility of Special Counsel Mueller, the Justice Department, and the FBI,” Cummings said in a statement.

{mosads}McCabe emerged back into political landscape after it was revealed that Mueller had removed a FBI agent from his team for sending text messages critical of President Trump.

Republicans have seized the report as an example of bias against Trump within the Justice Department and FBI and have targeted McCabe over the reports. GOP lawmakers have claimed that the Justice Department had gone easy on investigations into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, including her use of a private email server, and the recent media reports have fueled their suspicions.

Cummings praised McCabe for his conduct during the meeting, calling him “a man of great patriotism, integrity, and honor.”

“Like Sally Yates, Robert Mueller and many others, Deputy Director McCabe is a guardian of democracy, and we need more people like him in public service,” Cummings said, referring to the former acting attorney general whom Trump fired earlier this year for refusing to enforce his initial travel ban.

“The oath we take as Members of Congress is not to Donald Trump — it is to the Constitution of the United States. I believe the Republicans in Congress have either forgotten that vow, or they are forsaking it.”

Cummings also slammed the committee for not digging deep enough into Michael Flynn, the former White House national security adviser who pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russians.

“Here they are trying to undermine confidence in the Special Counsel’s investigation. But they won’t lift a finger to actually investigate the real abuses. They won’t request even a single scrap of paper from the White House about Michael Flynn, his security clearance, his foreign contacts, or his work with Russia to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East — none of it,” Cummings said.

The congressman also compared the GOP investigations into possible anti-Trump bias at the Department of Justice to the past probes into the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, and that the multiple investigations into the Justice Department were part of the “Republican playbook.”