Director. The white house is dropping the criminal investigation against him without bringing charges. He was under scrutiny for two years over a leak to a reporter. President trump has been angry about the decision. I spoke with Andrew Mccabe shortly before we came on the air tonight. Heres the interview. How did you get the news . You know, i was down in southwestern virginia at a swim meet for one of my kids and i got an email from my attorney who said that they had out of the blue been contacted by the district, the dc u. S. Attorneys office who said they needed to get on a phone call within the next 30 minutes. So they let me know and not expecting that sort of contact, we all immediately thought the worst. So my wife and i left the swim meet and went out to the car to be able to, you know, take the phone call in a place that was quieter and we just sat and stared at the clock and i started thinking about how this would play out. They were likely going to tell me that i had been indicted, i needed to surrender, make arrangements for that, how those things are done and we just sat and stared at the clock until we knew while we knew the phone call was taking place. At about 11 35 this morning my lawyers called and said, is jill there . We need you both to hear this together. And he said, theyre dropping the case. Its over. I mean, it we were just stunned. We were just absolutely stunned. This has been such a such a terrible experience. Its been so stressful on my fami family, on my wife and children, and to suddenly have that, you know, terrible kind of cloud hanging over your head all of a sudden in the stroke of a pen disappear is just remarkable. Honestly, don, i have a lot of conflicted feelings about it. As glad i am that they made the decision that they made which is the right decision and would have been the right decision two years ago, its just an absolute disgrace and a dishonor on the department of justice and the dc u. S. Attorneys office that they took so long to get to this very obvious conclusion. I was just going to ask you. I dont know if it feels like vindication or if its im sure its mixed emotions. Probably vindication, huge relief and stunned that the department or the government that you worked for and serviced did service work for so long to come after you like this. I mean, this took two years, andrew. Why did it take so long . Two yeah. Theres absolutely no reason for it to have taken that long. To answer your question, i mean, absolutely a huge relief, but i did not need to be vindicated. This should never have happened. I knew all along and have said from the beginning, if they simply followed the law and the fac facts, that this thing would go away. There would be no prosecution. There was no reason to do this. It was a simple matter. Very few people to talk to. If they went to investigate it they could have done that quickly and could have come to the obvious conclusion there was no case here. Why it took so long for doj and the department to do that, you know, i cant tell you. I have my own theories about that. Im sure that they would probably spend a lot of time about trying to figure out what to do with this investigation knowing that doing the right thing would incur the significant ire of the United States. One white house official says the president is fuming that you werent charged. We saw similar complaints over director comey. What goes through your mind that the most powerful person in the world wants you behind bars and is appearing to use his own Justice Department to go after a political rival, if you will . You know, thats the truly insidious part of it. The fact that this president doesnt understand how the Justice System works and how you dont just you dont just demand that perceived political enemies be thrown in jail and to be conducted fairly. Grand jurys goat ab opportunity to weigh in. He doesnt understand any of that. The Justice Department certainly does. The fact that they have played a they have been complicit in this politicization of the most sacred work is really, really concerning. You dont have to look at just my case. Not just about me. This is a much bigger issue about what kind of influence this president has had on the department of justice through attorney general barr. Im glad you said that because there are many people who have been not just the administration or the Justice Department but just in this political environment and being accused of things and having people believe it when its not true and you cant defend yourself because its a legal situation. I dont think people understand just how hopeless or how you feel about that, that you cant even defend your own self and that youre being wrongfully persecuted. I dont think many people can understand how that feels except a few people in this political environment. Thats absolutely right. I am a little bit lucky and be a little bit crazy. I took a fairly unconventional tact with this entire position. I have weighed in about things that are important, about justi justice, about investigations and what were all experiencing today through the really concerning things that have been happening and thats you know, that was taking a significant risk, but, you know, i believe very strongly from the beginning that i had nothing to fear. I dont know if this is possible, but did you ever want to take some sort of plea or bow out . For you to want to do this, im sure youre worried, im sure youve aged to be honest. Also it took considerable resources monetarily for your family. Its brutal, don. To answer your question, the answer is an absolute unqualified no. I never at any time considered ever agreeing to or clinging to anything having to do with this case. Absolutely should never have been brought. We obviously know that now and i was prepared to take this the distance to a trial in court in d. C. If that was necessary, which is a frightening prospect, right in the but when you have faith in what you know, what youve done, there comes a time where you have to stand up for that and, look, im just obviously very glad for the way things turned out today. Andy, what do you think of the timing of this . Is it at all convenient . This is coming after impeachment after the roger stone decision, the same way we hear a. G. Barr is examining the flynn case and stop tweeting because hes undermining his position as the attorney general. What do you think of the timing . Its really concerning. Its hard to define partially because there are so many things happening in the same very compressed time period. Theres no question the president has been on this kind of, you know, tour of retribution following his impeachment acquittal. As soon as i saw that happening to colonel vind land and his brother and ambassador sondland, i knew things would probably heat up for me. I was buckled in ready for bad things to happen to me. But clearly there has been a lot of turmoil invoked within the Justice Department over the decision to retract the original recommendation in the roger stone sentencing and i you know, it certainly seems like the attorney general is in a position to want to kind of calm some of that down certainly with his statements to abc news was an attempt to do that. Whether or not announcing this decision to me played a role in that, i cant say for certain, but its certainly a good question. Andy, if you had to do it all again, would you still have opened the case against donald trump . I mean, was it worth the hell that you have been put through . Without a doubt, don. It was absolutely the right thing to do then and i would do it again tomorrow if i was in the same situation and looking at the same facts. What look, what we have seen through the multiple investigations so far, all of the work of the i. G. Looking at everything each one of us did, the decisions we made, the communications, millions of documents. Even the biggest critics have said we were authorized to do what we did. In my judgment it would have been a dereliction of duty. We are guilty of doing our jobs and nothing else. I have to go, but i want to ask you. Was it your son or daughter in the swim meet and how did they do . Its my daughter and she had a great race today. She dropped some time and swam a personal best. Good day in the mccabe household. Good day for the mccabe family. Andy, thank you so much. We really appreciate you doing this. Thanks, don. It was great. Thanks for having me on. One of my next guests knows a lot about the kind of pressure Andrew Mccabe has been under. Appreciate all of you joining us this evening. Well talk on the other side of the break. Danceoffs. More travels. Or more touchdowns. Get the immune support that gives you more. Airbornes crafted blend has vitamins, minerals and herbs. And no gummy has more vitamin c. Airborne. Lets get down to business. The business of atlanta on monday. Cincinnati on tuesday. Philly on wednesday. And thursday back to cincinnati. Modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business keeps going, our business is you. Get the lowest price guaranteed on all Choice Hotels when you book direct at choicehotels. Com. To hear Andrew Mccabe tell me the case against him should never have been brought. You heard me say he and his colleagues were only guilty of doing their job, why did it take two years for the department to drop it. On the other side of the break i said welcome. John, im going to start with you. Andrew mccabe has been under intense scrutiny. Threatened with jail for over two years. You heard the interview. You can identify with that kind of pressure and what his family what theyre feeling tonight. Its relief tonight. Its been an awful two years for them. Not to mention how trump arranged to have him removed from the fbi two years before the retirement kicked in. I think he has a civil suit on that. One of the bigger things, don, thats happened to him is this is not going to go away. The president s apologists are going to stay after him. The conspiracy theorists are going to be there. When you take on a president , his followers never go away. They dwindle but they never give up. Max, the judge was told months ago that the case was pending but it wasnt announced until today. Was this all about the president wanting to keep mccabe dangling for political reasons . Its certainly quite possible. Don. I dont think we know what happened. As andy mccabe said, theres good cause to think that the Justice Department was reluctant to announce that this would antagonize the president. Quite possible they decided to make the announcement today simply because of the perception that justice has been compromised, that the president is polite sizing these decisions. Somebody at the u. S. Attorneys office in washington wants to show this is not the case. I think its very good news that they are not going to prosecute andy mccabe, but lets keep in mind that beyond the formal mechanisms of prosecution donald trump is still persecuting andy mccabe, he is still persecuting jim comey and lisa struck. We have never seen a president vilify private individuals in the way that trump does, especially individuals for a lifetime civil servants, members of the fbi. Its absolutely disgusting what the president does and he continues to do it even though his charges have been disproven by the Inspector General and Justice Department. So my heart really goes out to these men and women who have served this country for all of these years. What they have had to go through because of President Trump is n unconscionab unconscionable. I want to talk about the timing in all of this. This announcement comes on the same day that barr announced the reexamination of Michael Flynns case. Are we supposed to think this was a coincidence . I think it was. This was a case where they felt there wasnt enough to move forward with the criminal aspect of the mccabe case, but its really important to keep in mind and put it in perspective while clearly this is a huge relief for mccabe and his family, its important that this cloud did not come out of complete thin air. This came from unclassified leak of information and he went forward and provided false information and even the fbi itself has said that he lacked candor and gave misleading information four times, three times under oath. So this is an important aspect of this. So he is not completely without scrutiny here. That is an important aspect of this. Clearly as weve gotten to this point, two years later there has been a situation where they feel as though its not worthy of not moving forward. Max, do you want to respond to that . Well, clearly, there was some question about whether mccabe had testified untruthfully under oath. I think there was a legitimate ground for investigation. According to the Inspector General michael horowitz, i cant see any justification for the two years and i cant see any justification for the vile vilification andy mccabe and his fellow fbi agents have undergone at the hands of donald trump. Doug, i want to bring you in. Again, you know, its michael bisikoff that said it started from an obama appointee, started the investigation. Doug, listen, when you look at whats happened with roger stone and michael 234ri7b; this Justice Department being vilified . Absolutely. Do the bidding of the president. I mean, there were high hopes that barr would be a real attorney general, somebody who would act more like Elliott Richardson did during the watergate period. Instead, hes behaving more like the John Michelle feature. Meaning more than half of the population. May 31st he has to come in front of that. He wants to get drilled down with what in the world is going on with doj. Since 1870 the department of justice is an honorable institution and right now things are coming apart at the seems. Right now President Trump wants to get involved and demonize people that in any way, shape and form criticize people. We saw that with your important, wonderful that you had. 2016, we might have it in 2020. Hes gone through living hell. Turning trumps forces against him. The fact that andy mccabe had a life in democratic politics, god for bid, made trump hate him even more so. Its a troublesome scenario we have going on with him now. He is a folk here would he but theyre feeling hes the worst attorney general weve seen in our lifetime. The attorney general has asked the president , at least he said it publicly, not to tweet because its interfering with him doing his job. John, trump tweeted today that he has the legal right to intervene in criminal cases. What about the separation of powers in this country . Well, the department of justice is a part of the executive branch. Bill barr does have an exaggerated thought of the separation of power. There was for years after watergate because nixon reached into his own department and tried to fix the case against his aides, his chief of staff, top domestic advisor against my testimony, he brought the head of the Criminal Division into the oval office and sat there and talked with them day after day after day instead what i was telling the prosecutors to the people who were targets. So i gladly share that. No president or white house, accept this to the attorney general or depth of the attorney general. It was never in the substance of cases. That norm is gone. I could talk about this all evening. We are out of time. It is a fascinating conversation. We will continue here on cnn. More, thank you thank you, don. 2020 democrats wrapping up their campaigns. Who has the most to gain . Most to lose . Next. 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Amazon prime video so when you say words like, show me best of prime video into this, youll see awesome stuff like this. Discover prime originals like, the Emmy Award Winning the marvelous mrs. Maisel, tom clancys jack ryan, and the man in the high castle. All in the same place as your live tv. Its all included with your amazon prime membership. Thats how xfinity makes tv. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Im feeing good right now and now to save the race. Nevada caucuses are just days away followed by the South Carolina primary and super tuesday. What we see over the next few weeks could tell us a lot about where this race is going. We have the executive producer of show times the circus. Happy valentines day. Happy valentines day to you. The nevada primary and then its South Carolina. The dynamic is still, still fluid now. Who has the most to lose . Clearly Elizabeth Warren does. And the Vice President. Theyve got to make a showing in one of the next two states and a significant one. The way this is playing out is that bernies got a hot hand. Hes in a good position to eke out the resources. Hes going the distance. Hes likely to have a good couple of nights. Hes in very good position in places like california. The Vice President has key o people here. Petes still got a hot hand as well. The question is who between those two is going to try and emerge in that lilg lane and the centrist lane and can they urge enough. Make call bloomberg has played his smart strategic plan. Yes. Its like your mother. Democrats were not bloomberg yes. Tell that story. People are going to be like, oh, i know, stop it, stop it, stop it. If youll remember, mark, im not sure, 2015, 2016 i said on the air many times,