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April 14, 2018

The IG nails McCabe

By Thomas Lifson

Just as James Comey was building a head of steam for his publicity campaign to earn millions of dollars from his new book and speaking tour, the DOJ inspector general released a detailed 35-page report on the "lack of candor" by former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe that led to McCabe's firing.  The New York Times describes the report as "scathing."

The inspector general report was unsparing in its assessment of Mr. McCabe.  The review accused Mr. McCabe of lacking candor when he spoke to Mr. Comey shortly after the October 2016 article was published, when he spoke with F.B.I. investigators and then in two conversations with investigators for the inspector general.

Lack of candor, or knowingly providing false information, is a fireable offense at the F.B.I.

The inspector general said that when investigators asked whether Mr. McCabe had instructed a pair of aides to provide information in October 2016 to Devlin Barrett, then a Wall Street Journal reporter, Mr. McCabe said he did not authorize the disclosure and did not know who did.

Mr. McCabe subsequently said he approved the F.B.I.'s contact with the reporter, according to the review.

The I.G. charges that McCabe authorized the leak in order to burnish his own image, not to serve the interests of the FBI, which could have been a justification for a leak.  This is the Wall Street Journal article based on the leak from McCabe that painted the FBI as diligent in its pursuit of an investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

Mr. McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop's contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said.  After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.

Two paragraphs later:

New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case.  The probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.

Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity, these people said.  Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case.

It isn't unusual for field agents to favor a more aggressive approach than supervisors and prosecutors think is merited.  But the internal debates about the Clinton Foundation show the high stakes when such disagreements occur surrounding someone who is running for president.

Buried in the report is new information that a senior DOJ official was trying to shut down investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

 

 

 

Cristina Laila on Gateway Pundit cites the text on page 5 of the I.G. report that speaks to the effort to cool down the inquiry (emphasis Laila's):

McCabe-PADAG Call on the CF [Clinton Foundation] Investigation (August 12)

McCabe told the OIG that on August 12, 2016, he received a telephone call from PADAG [Principle Associate Deputy Attorney General] regarding the FBI's handling of the CF Investigation (the "PADAG call").  McCabe said that PADAG expressed concerns about FBI agents taking overt steps in the CF Investigation during the presidential campaign.  According to McCabe, he pushed back, asking "are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?"  McCabe told us that the conversation was "very dramatic" and he never had a similar confrontation like the PADAG call with a high level Department official in his entire FBI career.

There are other tidbits in the report that do not reflect glory on McCabe:

Meanwhile, now that McCabe has been convincingly revealed as a liar, the question raised by Steriff of RedState is highly relevant:

A PR firm created a GoFundMe campaign for his legal defense fund that raised over $500,000.  Today, the long-anticipated DOJ IG report that resulted in McCabe's firing was released, and some of those donors should ask for their money back.

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