McCabe Suggests Trump May Have Influenced Judge in Manafort Sentence: ‘Incredibly Irresponsible’

MARGARET BRENNAN: In your book “The Threat” you write about some of the president’s public comments about Paul Manafort in particular and you frame it in one passage as possible witness tampering. You say you fear a judge will be influenced by some of the po- the president’s comments. Did you have any sense that that’s what happened here with Judge Ellis?

ANDREW McCABE: I don’t. I don’t. But the point that I try to make in the book is that— it’s to try to highlight how incredibly irresponsible and indeed corrosive statements like that from the chief executive are on the process and on the public’s perception of the fairness and the effectiveness of the process. When the president engages in messaging like that people can’t help but step back and ask themselves that question that you just asked, did that have an impact on the process or on the result in this case. We don’t know the answer to that but it introduces a level of doubt and insecurity into a system that we all need to depend on- upon to being fair and free.