Joining us now is former FBI
deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
So, Andrew,
the attorney statement
essentially says
this all is based on information or,
you know, as a result of civil lawsuits.
Is it common for civil lawsuits
to spark interest of homeland security
and launch an investigation?
Well, it's not uncommon for allegations
in civil lawsuits
to be considered
by federal investigators
and federal prosecutors and reviewed
to determine
whether or not a federal crime
may have been committed.
And that seems to be what happened here.
I thought it was interesting
that the attorney statement
really basically confirmed for the public
that some of the investigative interest
was likely generated from these lawsuits,
which is interesting
because several of the lawsuits
allege activity that likely would fall
within the parameters of sex trafficking.
Several of these women claimed
to have been transported
from one state to another
and then drugged and assaulted,
or his former girlfriend
who claims to have been forced
to perform sex acts with different people
in different states
as they traveled around the country.
So I think it was
an unfortunate
almost admission by the lawyer
and that that has legal significance.
But it certainly puts us in a position
to speculate
more accurately about
what's actually
driving this investigation.
I mean, it's interesting
that if that was a, you know,
a mistake by the attorney or,
you know, unwise wording by the attorney,
I mean, they had a day
to come up with the statement.
It's interesting that that's
then what they they came up with.
I mean, are some
what are some of the reasons
why law enforcement officials
would choose
to execute
two search warrants simultaneously
and with that level of force,
because that's the other criticism
by where one of the other criticisms
by the attorney
that it was an over, you know,
the use of sort of
armored vehicles
and, you know, folks in Kevlar.
Yeah.
So why the search
warrants simultaneously?
Well, again,
at the attorneys direction,
we can now look to the civil
suits for clues.
And one of them for me
is that several of these victims
alleged that Mr.
Combs
and his associates
videotaped the sexual encounters.
So that is exactly the kind of evidence
that you would want to
go to someone's home
to see if you could find.
So I would expect that
that was probably included
in the search warrants
both at the same time,
because once you hit one house,
the subject knows
that you're probably going
to hit the other houses
looking for the same stuff.
So you're better off doing them
if you can.
If you have probable
cause in two locations,
you're better off doing them at once.
And finally,
you know,
the roundhouse swing
he took at the show of force
really kind of
classic defense attorney tactics
to try to turn around a bad press day.
But in fact, Mr.
Holmes has a long history
of being investigated
for things like assaults,
harassment, threatening people
with baseball bats
and kettlebells and things like that.
And the way it works in law enforcement
is when you are planning
a search warrant,
if you have any information,
it doesn't have to be
a criminal conviction,
just intelligence
that indicates that someone
who's going to be at that residence
may have a violent history
or have armed themselves
against people in the past,
you're going to automatically qualify
that search warrant
or classify it as armed and dangerous.
And that classification alone
brings an additional level of protection
of tactical preparedness to ensure
that there's no problems, that
everything is done
in a safe away as possible.
So I think what we saw
yesterday was understandable
in the context
of an armed and dangerous warrant.
All right.
Andrew McCabe, thanks very much