The acting director of the FBI on Thursday disputed a key part of the stated rationale for firing Director James Comey — that he had lost the confidence of his agents.

Andrew McCabe, who took over temporarily after President Donald Trump abruptly dismissed Comey, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that his former boss was well-respected.

“I can tell you, also, that Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.”

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“No, sir, that is not accurate,” he said after Sen. Marin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked whether Comey had lost the support of the rank and file.

McCabe declined to answer a number of questions about the specifics of the agency’s investigation into possible coordination between Russian agents’ meddling in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign. But he offered a full-throated defense of Comey’s integrity.

Ever since Comey joined the FBI, McCabe said, he worked closely with him. He noted that he was Comey’s executive assistant director of national security and ran his Washington field office. For the past year, he has been deputy director.

“I can tell you that I hold Director Comey in the absolute highest regard,” he said. “I have the highest respect for his considerable abilities and his integrity, and it has been the greatest privilege and honor of my professional life to work with him. I can tell you, also, that Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.”

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McCabe’s testimony contradicts the statements this week of deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said there is a long list of reasons why Trump acted.

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“The biggest reason is really, really simple,” she told CBS News. “He’d lost the confidence of the rank-and-file members of the FBI,” adding that Comey “politicized” his role.

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McCabe said that is not a view shared by most of the 36,500 people who work for the agency around the world.

“I can confidently tell you that the majority, the vast majority, of FBI employees enjoyed a deep, positive connection to Director Comey,” he said.

McCabe did, however, acknowledge that some agents disagreed with how Comey handled the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information.

“Morale has always been good,” McCabe said in response to a question by Sen. Joe Machin (D-W.Va.). “However, there were folks within our agency who were frustrated with the Hillary Clinton case, and some of those folks were very vocal about those concerns.”