Double Down: McCabe Won’t Take A Plea Deal ‘Under Any Circumstances’ If Indicted

A defiant Andrew McCabe said Tuesday that he will not “under any circumstances” accept a plea deal if indicted for lying about leaks to he press.

“Will you take a deal in order to go on with the rest of your life if there is no big criminal attachment, you don’t have to do any time or anything like that?” CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked McCabe in an interview.

“Absolutely not, under any circumstances,” said McCabe, who joined CNN as an analyst on Aug. 23.

“No deal?” Cuomo asked.

“Absolutely not under any circumstances,” McCabe repeated.

“I have said to you, I said from the very beginning, I absolutely reject that report because I never intentionally misled anyone about anything, and I will not stand up and claim that I’ve done something that I didn’t do.”

“So it won’t happen.”

Federal prosecutors in Virginia are pushing for charges against McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, for making false statements to the FBI and Justice Department’s office of the inspector general (OIG) regarding his authorization of a leak to the media in October 2016.

Last week, the Justice Department informed McCabe that it had rejected his last-ditch effort to appeal future charges, an indication that he could soon be in indicted. He has yet to be indicted in the case, though a grand jury reportedly reconvened last week after many months on hiatus.

But McCabe says that he denied doing anything wrong, or of intentionally misleading investigators.

“To be clear, I absolutely of reject the findings and conclusions of the IG Report that accused me of exhibiting a lack of candor in several instances,” McCabe told Cuomo.

“I never intentionally misled anyone about anything and I certainly have not committed a crime.”

McCabe was fired from the FBI on March 16, 2018 after the OIG and FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility recommended doing so. He sued the FBI and Justice Department on Aug. 8, claiming that he was fired because of political pressure from President Trump.