Andrew McCabe Sues DOJ Alleging Failure to Provide Documents Related to His Firing
McCabe’s attorneys hope to “restore his good name”
I guess now we know what McCabe is using his GoFundMe earnings for?
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is suing the Department of Justice and the DOJ Inspector General, alleging the department failed to produce documents relevant to his firing.
McCabe was fired days before he planned an abrupt early retirement. His employment with the agency was terminated on the recommendation of both FBI and DOJ officials. McCabe was accused of leaking classified information and approving leaks to the press on numerous occasions.
McCabe planned a quick exit in anticipation of a damning IG report.
The WaPo reports:
“The complaint says the Justice Department has publicly defended the firing yet failed to identify for McCabe the policies and procedures it followed before dismissing him. The department has withheld the information, McCabe’s lawyers allege, for fear that the materials could be used against them in any additional lawsuits.
“We don’t create or adjudicate under secret law or procedure,” David Snyder, one of McCabe’s lawyers, said in an email to The Associated Press.
…
The lawsuit in federal court in Washington also comes just days ahead of a Justice Department inspector general report expected to criticize senior FBI officials, including McCabe, for their actions during the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
McCabe’s lawyers say in the complaint that they want the records as they “seek to vindicate Mr. McCabe’s rights and restore his good name,” and as they weigh whether to take more legal action over a firing they contend was improper.
…
In the lawsuit, McCabe’s lawyers say the department has repeatedly insisted that it followed appropriate policies and procedures before firing McCabe but has either denied or refused to respond to requests about that process.
“Defendants fear that disclosure to Plaintiff of the documents at issue will place Defendants and others at risk in any proceedings brought against them by Mr. McCabe,” the complaint states. “Based on these fears, Defendants appear to have preemptively decided not to disclose the documents to Plaintiff.”
Among the records being sought are an inspector general manual that lays out the guidelines governing the office and FBI policy guides on how disciplinary matters should be handled.
The lawsuit says the inspector general’s office has refused to make the manual available and denied the lawyers access to a library or reading room to review the document. The complaint says the FBI and Justice Department failed to disclose the FBI documents, preventing McCabe and his lawyers from knowing whether appropriate procedures were followed before the firing.
Contrary to much reporting at the time of his firing, McCabe wasn’t stripped of his pension when he was fired. Being fired meant access to his pension was delayed, but not that it was forfeited.
In April, the IG sent a criminal referral of McCabe to a U.S. Attorney in D.C.
Shortly after McCabe was fired, his attorneys promised several suits saying, “we’ll file when we’re ready.”
Last week, Jonathan Turley discussed why the indictment of James Wolfe ought to concern McCabe most:
The indictment of James Wolfe, 58, former security director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), has sent shockwaves around Washington. Wolfe faces three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. 1001, for making false statements to criminal investigators, and could easily face serious jail time if convicted. After a year of leaks cascading down Capitol Hill, Wolfe is a cautionary tale for many members, staffers and journalists. Yet, one person should be especially discomforted by the indictment: former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
The Wolfe indictment shows the Justice Department has been actively pursuing leaks out of Congress. Given the lack of prior action, members and staffers may have become emboldened over time, but it now appears the Trump administration has been quietly tracking down the source of some news articles.
He might be fighting back on procedural technicalities, but that won’t save him from ongoing investigations which continue to produce evidence of his involvement in a number of leaks.
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Comments
Send out the wheelbarrows of evidence. Make sure Congress gets copies. Should be interesting.
Looks like the dog caught up with the car.
–Andrew
That’s hilarious!
Wait. You can sue the DoJ when they refuse to produce documents?
Quick! Someone tell Congress!
He has great confidence in the Deep State and its legal division.
Doubling down on stupid. I hope this turns out to smear his “good name” to a point where it is used as a definition of stupidity.
I await seeing Comey get his day as well. Then Mueller should get his “good name” tarred and feathered. All just for good measure.
I guess you missed the part where Trump lied about his encounters with Comey and then bluffed that he might have tapes (but didn’t). Comey had contemporaneous memos that are evidence that he told the truth.
Trump is a pathological liar. You people are like battered spouses that think “Its OK that he lies because he loves me”.
Obama was abusive in trying to plug leaks. I don’t remember anyone, here, complaining. Way too much material is classified in the service of the incumbent. But I am guessing the ‘double standard’ will prevail. I understand why.
But stop claiming the moral high ground. Conservatives are just as likely to be expedient as liberals.
What lies did Trump tell about these encounters? And what makes you think the memos were contemporaneous? Yes, Trump bluffed about possibly having tapes, in order to prevent Comey from lying; what’s wrong with that?
Why waste your time with this con man?
You are #NeverTrump?
I am surprised at you, Milhouse. Most of the time you attempt a facade of objectivity. You know the answer to your question or you could easily figure it out.
How could we possibly know that a man who was, at the time, Director of the FBI would know how to document a meeting that he found disturbing in a manner that it could later be proved to be contemporaneous? Doh!
Your comments should bear some relation to the facts and the truth. Mr. Trump boasting (blustering in public) is not the same as an FBI agent (in this case Mr. McCabe) lying to department investigators. Mr. McCabe, more than Mr. Trump, knows full well his responsibility to tell the truth and the consequences for lying to investigators.
Can u read? My comment was in response to oldgoat36 who impugned Comey. On that one Trump was shown to be the liar and have obstructed of justice.
Gee, I thought Trump did a great job of handing Hillary justice.
Hoping to get redemption in the “process”, not of fact. By definition, chutzpah…..
Send it out with all the usual redactions!
The only mature, rational reaction is:
BAAAA….
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Restore his good name? Somebody must’ve redacted the crappe out of the IG report for him to try to get away with that.
So, the request for an immunity deal in lieu of testimony was rejected? Which means the DOJ doesn’t need anything he has to offer. McCabe is toast.
His request for immunity was in return for testimony to Congress, not the DOJ.
Congress can not prosecute him, the DOJ can.
Do you seriously not understand how it works? Congress can give him immunity from prosecution, in return for his agreement to testify before it. That is what he sought. It had nothing to do with the DOJ.
Since Congress isn’t in the prosecution business, I don’t see how they can immunize him against evidence already in the possession of DOJ/IG.
How do you think Oliver North got his convictions overturned? North’s convictions were vacated, after the appeals court found that his trial might have been impermissibly affected by his immunized congressional testimony.
He beat the charges on a technicality. Yet he claimed he was found innocent.
What has evidence already in the possession of DOJ/IG got to do with it? He never asked for immunity from that.
It seems like he could argue that the immunized testimony before Congress would taint any prosecution, no matter where the evidence was obtained. I think that was Y.G.’s point, eh?
No immunity would have been granted w/o consultation with the DOJ.
Says who? The senate routinely grants immunity without such consultation.
McCabe is after the crowd that swore to protect his name no matter how many laws he broke.
.
Pass the popcorn.
Serves at the pleasure of the President of the United States.
Dismissed.
No, I think he was career FBI, so the president couldn’t fire him without cause. He could demote him from deputy director, but he’d have to keep him in the service.
The position of FBI Director is an appointed position that requires Senate confirmation. (does a quick check)
Ah! I see. The position of >Deputy< Director is filled by the FBI director and does not require Senate confirmation. McCabe was DD serving as *Acting* FBI director when he racked up that collection of misconduct. It's hard to believe he only served as DD and FBI Director for a year and a half combined. He was very busy doing the wrong things, it appears.
Still, even DD's can be canned with remarkable speed. See Yates, Sally.
Trump could probably have ordered him demoted from the DD position without cause; but he could not fire him from the FBI. He had civil service protections. Therefore he waited for cause.
Trump could “put him on the beach” for most any cause. Maybe not demote him, maybe not cut his pay, maybe not literally fire him. But let him keep his nominal position and pay, but exclude him from all decisions of actual authority. In the civilian world we’d call that a “constructive termination,” but in the political world, the Executive branch runs the Executive branch.
I’m pretty sure, since we’re apparently splitting a lot of hairs tonight, Trump did not fire McCabe. Sessions says he weighed the recommendations and he fired McCabe. That process (which was absolutely not, in any way, shape, or form, a hearing) was all internal executive branch. I have no idea how the FBI’s procedures can be different and still be legal, but someone out there does. I guess I just have to wait and find out.
Whether it was Trump or Sessions makes no difference. The issue is his being actually fired, rather than merely given no work to do, despite the cushy protections civil servants have arranged for themselves, making them almost unfireable.
Had he merely been put in the rubber room he’d have no claim (and he’d have retired the next day, with an early pension). But he was fired, for cause, and he claims the finding of cause may have been defective, but the only way he can know for sure is by obtaining the records of how the decision was made.
Found it. The FBI operates not under Civil Service, but Exempted Service:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excepted_service
One key factor concerning the excepted service is that employees have fewer appeal rights (compared to positions in the competitive service) in the event of disciplinary actions or job termination. For example, non-veteran employees in the excepted service are generally barred from appealing adverse agency personnel decisions to the United States Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) or to the Federal courts for their first two years of employment, whereas employees in the competitive service have a one-year probationary period. Excepted service agencies have consistently claimed that they need the speed and flexibility afforded by being in the excepted service in order to perform their missions and maintain good order and discipline.
May I suggest your view is too narrow. McCabe’s request for immunity was declined. If he appears before the Senate the former DD of the FBI will refuse to answer questions because the answers may incriminate him in criminal proceedings. This is not a happy scenario and McCabe is attempting to assert further pressure to gain immunity. McCabe is saying there are documents the FBI does not want anyone to know about so re-think the immunity. He has no meritorious position with regard to being fired and knows what is in the IG report. He does not want to face going to prison but also does not want to give up anyone other than (if he must) Comey. McCabe does not want to be in the position of needing to trade up beyond Comey to avoid prison. It is possible McCabe may be aware from the IG report Comey is pretty much done with and naming names as to Comey is really no big deal.
Unfortunately for McCabe the clock is ticking and it is very likely he has already been positioned to be a fall guy. No matter the jeapardy he faces McCabe and his family live in a world where his naming anyone outside of the FBI would have enormous social, professional, etc., consequences. McCabe cannot do a deal where he implicates people in the WH or high up at DOJ because he cannot live out the rest of his life in (or move his family to) South Carolina, Wyoming or Oklahoma. He may have to do time in order to shield his family.
After some thought on this move of McCabe, I’m wondering if it is more of a “best defense is a good offense” type move. It could be legal wrangling to tie up and make any prosecution against him look like retaliation for this suit. The media would certainly back McCabe in this, more for public opinion garnering, piggy backing on the left which supported him after his firing.
Once again, the giant and fatal flaw in your theory is that he did not request immunity from the DOJ but from the Senate; his suit against the DOJ can therefore have no effect on it. Why would the Senate care about his suing the DOJ, or be influenced by it? And while I suppose the DOJ could, technically, give him immunity for senate testimony or for anything else it likes, it would surely be unprecedented.
What am I missing? This was an administrative hearing, not a trial in a court of law. The proceedings are over. Why would he have privileged access to executive branch internal deliberations he wants to use in lawsuits that haven’t even been filed?
What hearing? There was no hearing, no proceeding. Under civil service rules he’s entitled to know on what grounds he was fired, so he can know what recourse he might have.
Quoting the NY Times,
“During the internal investigation, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, Mr. McCabe “lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”
My mistake if he didn’t receive a “hearing”. He clearly had multiple opportunities to state his version of events, a version his own agency deemed to be lacking candor. He has the grounds for his firing. What he apparently wants is all the internal deliberations by which these grounds were determined. I know Congress can’t get them. Why does he think he can get them?
And, more importantly, if he needs them for Mystery Lawsuit X, he should file that lawsuit and take it up with the judge, yes?
He (allegedly) lacked candor when responding to the investigators into the handling of the Clinton email case. There is no evidence of any investigation or proceeding or hearing on whether to fire him. He had no opportunity to state his version of events. And without that information he can’t file the lawsuit because he doesn’t know what rights of his, if any, were violated.
Am I to take it that the FBI has been unconstitutionally/ illegally firing people for the last several decades, then? They’ve never disclosed a thing about anyone except when agents have been criminally charged, to the best of my knowledge?
And to be clear, I’m not trying to pick a fight. I’m trying to find out if a) McCabe was uniquely wronged, or b) every agent fired in the last half-century has been similarly wronged by an identical process of the agency he worked at for much of his life.
McCabe seems to be saying there are reievant docs and you don’t want anyone to see them….
When has the FBI been firing people? It’s the civil service; firing is not a thing.
What this tells me is that McCabe has seen the IG report and it is savage to Comey – probably calling him a lying crapweasel.
So McCabe is probably setting up his defense of ‘Comey gave me permission and is lying about it’.
where’e the actual lawsuit filed.. what’s the complaint? Wrongful Termination, Defamation.
where’s
Given the DOJ’s propensity to drag out and redact it might be years before McCabe gets a hearing. I’m sure national security is involved here somewhere.
Could be that he is counting on there being documents involved which are classified and wouldn’t be released in court. The thing is there were reports on why he was fired in the press. I think this is positioning a public relations claim that any prosecution against him is just in retaliation for this suit.
This is predictable. McCabe is in the process of being thrown under the bus by his fellow conspirators, so he’s doing whatever he can to save himself. Probably won’t work, though.
McCabe being on the outside, wants access to all the documents and lies he facilitated while he was on the inside as he can’t remember what lies he told to whom.
Trump is in the process of throwing under the bus his fellow conspirators and doing whatever he can to save himself. Probably won’t work, though.
YellowGrifter–specialize in incoherence much? I thought so.
It should have been attached to your comment of June 13, 2018 at 7:02 am. So if you are incoherent, my comment is too.
Based on these fears, Defendant appears to have preemptively decided not to disclose the documents to Plaintiff.
Well, Mr. McCabe can now enjoy the fruits of all his efforts with his Deep State pals to stonewall requests to DOJ for information.
For HTML reasons, I can’t directly reply, but I laughed out loud at Milhouse’s suggestion along the lines of, since when has the FBI fired anyone.
As in, at all.
For numerous decades.
OK, someone with less of a life than me actually knows the process by which an FBI agent can be.. if not fired.. then “let go”.. dismissed.. or what have you. Or, people in the civil service in general, since the idea of a single one being fired for any reason seems… foreign? I was just under the distinct impression that at least one poor, poor soul beside McCabe had been fired in the time since oh, WWII or so. Silly me!
McCabe is going down in history as a deplorable.
This is a joke, right? What good name are we talking about?