Republicans want FBI’s McCabe to answer questions on Clinton emails

Samuel Corum | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Andrew McCabe, Acting Director of the FBI after President Trump fired James Comey, speaks during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing in Washington, on May 11, 2017.

Two top Republicans are calling for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to sit for transcribed interviews with House committees investigating the bureau’s handling of the Clinton email investigation last year.

The requests on Tuesday from House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina followed McCabe’s seven-hour grilling from the House Intelligence Committee. He also faces heightening calls for his ouster.

The lawmakers also requested interviews with FBI chief of staff Jim Rybicki and Lisa Page, the FBI lawyer whose texts calling Trump an “idiot” made headlines earlier in December.

“Among other things, the Committees are investigating the circumstances surrounding the FBI’s decision to publicly announce the investigation into former Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified information, but not to publicly announce the investigation into campaign associates of then-candidate Donald Trump,” the congressmen wrote in their letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Gowdy has predicted that McCabe will soon be dismissed.

“I will be a little bit surprised if he’s still an employee of the FBI this time next week,” Gowdy said last week on Fox News.

The Judiciary and Oversight committees opened a joint investigation into the Justice Department in October. Goodlatte has repeatedly called for the appointment of a special counsel to look into the department’s decisions during the 2016 election, including the probe of Hillary Clinton’s email.

The revelation of anti-Trump text messages exchanged by Page and Peter Strzok provided new life to Republican criticisms of the Justice Department. Special counsel Robert Mueller removed Strzok from his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Page left before Mueller reported seeing the texts.

“These text messages prove what we all suspected: High-ranking FBI officials involved in the Clinton investigation were personally invested in the outcome of the election, and clearly let their strong political opinions cloud their professional judgment,” Goodlatte said at a House hearing with Rosenstein in December.

President Donald Trump has long been suspicious of McCabe, an ally of former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired in May.

In July, the president posted a message to his Twitter account suggesting that Sessions should have fired McCabe, “a Comey friend who was in charge of the Clinton investigation.”

The president has also criticized McCabe over donations his wife received during a 2015 campaign for Virginia state senate.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend of Hillary Clinton, donated almost half a million dollars to Jill McCabe through his political organization. Later, McCabe would help oversee the Clinton email investigation.