Prosecutors Recommend McCabe Face Criminal Charges Over Leaking Details to Media, Lying to Federal Agents
The DOJ IG found McCabe “lacked candor” four times during its investigation.
Federal prosecutors shot down an appeal from former FBI Deputy Director and current CNN contributor Andrew McCabe, who asked them to not recommend he face criminal charges. From The New York Times:
Lawyers for Mr. McCabe, who is being investigated over whether he lied to internal investigators about dealings with the news media, had argued that prosecutors lacked evidence to charge him. The lawyers detailed their position to top officials including Jeffrey A. Rosen, the deputy attorney general, who ultimately rejected their view. His deputy, Edward O’Callaghan, who was also present during the discussion, notified Mr. McCabe’s lawyers of the decision, one of the people said.
The case is politically fraught for the Justice Department because of President Trump’s repeated attacks on Mr. McCabe, who was the acting director of the F.B.I. when investigators opened the inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice. Charging Mr. McCabe would undoubtedly please Mr. Trump, but passing on charges could provoke his public displeasure.
The rejection of Mr. McCabe’s appeal would typically foreshadow an impending indictment, but that has apparently not yet happened. The grand jury hearing the case was recalled this week after going months without meeting but left without revealing any public signs of an indictment, The Washington Post reported. Grand jury proceedings are secret.
The Department of Justice Inspector General sent a criminal referral of McCabe to the US attorneys office in DC in April 2018.
The IG found four times McCabe “lacked candor.” From the report:
We also found that on May 9, 2017, when questioned under oath by FBI agents from INSD, McCabe lacked candor when he told the agents that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ and did not know who did. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).
We further found that on July 28, 2017, when questioned under oath by the OIG in a recorded interview, McCabe lacked candor when he stated: (a) that he was not aware of Special Counsel having been authorized to speak to reporters around October 30 and (b) that, because he was not in Washington, D.C., on October 27 and 28, 2016, he was unable to say where Special Counsel was or what she was doing at that time. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).
We additionally found that on November 29, 2017, when questioned under oath by the OIG in a recorded interview during which he contradicted his prior statements by acknowledging that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ, McCabe lacked candor when he: (a) stated that he told Comey on October 31, 2016, that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ; (b) denied telling INSD agents on May 9 that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ about the PADAG call; and (c) asserted that INSD’s questioning of him on May 9 about the October 30 WSJ article occurred at the end of an unrelated meeting when one of the INSD agents pulled him aside and asked him one or two questions about the article. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).
In August, US Attorney for District of DC Jessie Liu recommended McCabe face charges for lying to federal agents. McCabe and his lawyers filed his appeal. At the same time, McCabe claimed in a lawsuit the DOJ wrongfully terminated him. He accused President Donald Trump’s administration “of political meddling.” Politico reported last month:
“It was Trump’s unconstitutional plan and scheme to discredit and remove DOJ and FBI employees who were deemed to be his partisan opponents because they were not politically loyal to him,” according to McCabe’s lawsuit. “Plaintiff’s termination was a critical element of Trump’s plan and scheme.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, comes just two days after former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok filed a similar lawsuit, alleging that Trump’s vendetta against him led to his unceremonious firing, despite a formal disciplinary process that recommended a less severe punishment. Strzok is seeking his old job back or compensation for his lost pay and benefits, while McCabe is seeking the reinstatement of his full retirement benefits.
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Comments
What a euphemism for lying: lacked candor. But I wouldn’t do a jig yet about McCabe’s being indicted. So far, DOJ has gone very easy on him along with the other coup plotters.
yeah AG Barr is quickly turning out to be a big disappointment
April of 2019 a recommendation was sent
it is September 2019 now
what the F is the holdup?
Giving Barr the benefit of the doubt, you have to remember that DOJ is heavily contaminated with leftist activists, who hate President Trump and probably Barr as well.
Even without directly confronting Barr, they can “slow walk” the entire process so that critical events in the prosecutiion occur after the 2020 election, upon which they place their hopes that Trump is defeated and they can once again take their rightful place as the real power in Washington DC.
I hope they file the case against McCabe in some red state, just to get a chance at a conviction.
The Washington DC juries will not convict him.
What does “leftist contamination” have to do with it? Barr can tell them to indict or turn in their resignations
I believe that it is almost impossible to fire a federal employee. Particularly for something like “working too slowly”.
Sure he can. And he can create reversible error that a judge and jury can use to find not guilty. At which point double jeopardy has attached and we’re done.
“I hope they file the case against McCabe in some red state, just to get a chance at a conviction.
The Washington DC juries will not convict him.”
since the crime[s] occurred in DC or in the virginia suburbs of DC, the case will have to be tried in that vicinity. The prosecution will be hard pressed to get change of venue over the defense’s objection. (defendents can get change of venue much easier than prosecution).
This was one of the problems of indicting Hillary (assuming that a Dem DOJ would every have indicted her – that is another problem). There was no way that a DC area jury would be able to seat an unbiased jury in her case.
Sessionized already.
Agree. The left always seems to slither out of every crooked thing they are involved in. Going back to good ol’ Seaman Staynz, and his vile enabler, NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. I’ll be surprised if these seditious bastards get anything harsher than a letter of admonition saying “tsk, tsk, c’mon guys, you shouldna done that.”
How in the world can a crook appeal an indictment?
I had the same comment, although I note he isn’t a “crook” yet. Why in the world would any system allow an appeal by the accused.
Astonishingly, this is a privilege that seems to be offered to only the FBI/DOJ corruptocrats. I have never heard of anything like this for anyone else.
It’s a start.
Forward plow!
If there are no serious indictments, and subsequent convictions, there will be further coup and/or assassination attempts.
If the law only means what one political faction of the powerful say it means at any given moment, there is no law, there is no pretense of justice. And there is no political means to return to Constitutional rule.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Until they show that there is a rule of law . . . for everybody . . . there is no rule of law.
Subotai Bahadur
Amen.
It’s all Kabuki theater until proven otherwise.
“Natives are getting restless, let’s see if we throw a faux indictment for something minor, pled out to 30 hours of community service, to settle them down”.
That’s not going to fool the natives the time, although a fake conservative columnist at WaPo will lecture us on how we should be gratified at such a huge moral victory.
Their attitude can be paraphrased from Mel Brooks,
Congressman Count de Monet: “I’ve come on the most urgent of business. It is said that the people are revolting.
Deep State: “You said it! They stink”
If this ends up with yet another blow-by-blow account of treason being committed but concluding that they found no grounds for prosecution… Maybe AG Barr needs to be investigated too. He seems to be close friends with so many of them, Mueller, Comey,… And he gave Jeffrey Epstein his first job too. Something really stinks.
Methinks the stench is from Barr’s first gig as AG where those that should be prosecuted have more than enough dirt to send Barr to prison.
my guess?
it’ll be pled down to a single misdemeanor, and he’ll get 8 hours of community service, which will be covered by 8 hours of making “Orange Man Bad” PSA’s (commercials) for the Demonrats.
When the article talks about an appeal, I think it’s referring to the McCabe legal team trying to persuade the prosecutors not to indict. If there was anyone who deserves an indictment, it’s this guy, followed by Rosenstein, Comey, and the idiots who ran the CIA and the NSA.
The sad thing about this charge is that it is an in house charge and the really big thing that McCabe did was to try and overthrow a legally POTUS! He will get a hand slapping and maybe even probation but the charge he should be facing is sedition. WTF is the IG doing? Just like when he said that the FBI agents in the hillary case were NOT biased was insane! He said they may have made some judgemental mistakes but it was not based on political bias! Now the IG is talking about four instances of “Lack of candor”! We call that lying in our world and Martha Stewart got a year in the slammer for it. McCabe will get probation and his role in sedition will never come up.
This is slow-motion crap.
Who said it? Sedition. Exactly.
Put him in Guantanamo and throw away the damn key.
you misspelled “pug his head in a noose, and throw the lever.”
you’re welcome. 😎
and i misspelled “put…”
stupid fingers…
What’s with this delicate “lacked candor” euphemism, in the IG’s report? Why is so hard to use the verb “lie,” when the actor at issue demonstrably lied?
McCabe is a greasy and self-serving idiot, making leaks, and, then — get this — dressing down his peers in the NYC FBI office, for leaks that he himself, made! It doesn’t get any more corrupt than that.
As painful as this slow motion play is progressing, the theater would not even exist if HRC were POTUS.
While I do not trust the DOJ, I pray that McCabe will sing like a canary as the anatomical vice tightens. The Mueller fraud was allowed to exist until it died of “natural” causes. The Dems lost their “cover-up” narrative when Trump let it move slowly. Perhaps there is a plan here. The corruption stays in the “news” when the coup disintegrates slowly. These traitors seem to have no defense against time as Trump knows how to use time. BTW, I would like to see speed but maybe the long strategy will work longer.
I wonder if the gov. can threaten his pension if he is found guilty of committing criminal acts during his employment.