Trump says Comey threw McCabe 'under the bus' after criminal referral

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Trump tweets: Comey threw McCabe 'under the bus'

The 'Special Report' All-Star panel reacts after the Justice Department inspector general sends criminal referral to federal prosecutors.

President Trump said Thursday that former FBI Director James Comey "threw [fired FBI Deputy Director] Andrew McCabe 'under the bus'" after the Justice Department's inspector general referred McCabe to federal prosecutors.

The president made the comment on Twitter less than three hours after Comey told CNN that he "could well be a witness" in a criminal case against McCabe.

"I like [McCabe] very much as a person, but sometimes even good people do things they shouldn’t do," Comey told "The Lead with Jake Tapper." "I think it is accountability mechanisms working and they should work because it’s not acceptable in the FBI or the Justice Department for people to lack candor. It’s something we take really seriously."

Last week, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report finding that McCabe misled Comey and federal investigators about his role in leaking information to the Wall Street Journal in October 2016 about the FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

DOJ WATCHDOG SENDS CRIMINAL REFERRAL FOR MCCABE TO FEDERAL PROSECUTOR

Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe on March 16, less than two days before his scheduled retirement date.

Trump tweeted Thursday that the Horowitz report on McCabe was "a disaster" for him and Comey and suggested the two were "[g]etting a little (lot) of their own medicine." The president has attacked McCabe and Comey repeatedly, before and after their firings from the FBI. Trump fired Comey in May 2017.

The inspector general's report said McCabe authorized FBI officials to share nonpublic information with a reporter and then denied having done so when questioned about it under oath.

McCabe has denied misleading anyone. He said that as FBI deputy director, he had the authority to share information with the media and that he permitted subordinates to do so in this case to correct a false narrative that he had tried to stymie an FBI probe into the Clinton Foundation.

McCabe told the inspector general's office he told Comey after the article was published that he had allowed the officials to share the information and that Comey thought it was a "good" idea to rebut a one-sided narrative. But Comey is quoted in the report as saying McCabe didn't tell him he had approved sharing details of the call and, in fact, had left him with the opposite impression.

"I don't remember exactly how, but I remember some form or fashion and it could have been like 'Can you believe this crap? How does this stuff get out' kind of thing?" Comey was quoted as saying in the report. "But I took from whatever communication we had that he wasn't involved in it."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.