USA Jesse Liu Recommends Prosecution, DoJ Rejects McCabe's Pleas
Fox News is reporting that Jesse Liu, the US Attorney for DC, is set to prosecute disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, based on a report from DoJ's OIG. Fox is also reporting that McCabe's pleas to DoJ to override Liu have been rejected by DAG Jeffrey Rosen. For my own part, I decline to get excited about this. McCabe is guilty of far more "egregious misconduct" (to borrow Sidney Powell's phrase) for which he needs to be held accountable.
Here's Fox's explanation of the case--US attorney recommends proceeding with charges against McCabe, as DOJ rejects last-ditch appeal :
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe in March 2018 after the inspector general found he had repeatedly misstated his involvement in a leak to The Wall Street Journal regarding an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
The IG report faulted McCabe for leaking information to then-Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett for an Oct. 30, 2016 story titled “FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe.” The story -- written just days before the presidential election – focused on the FBI announcing the reopening of the Clinton investigation after finding thousands of her emails on a laptop belonging to former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
The Journal's account of the call said a senior Justice Department official expressed displeasure to McCabe that FBI agents were still looking into the Clinton Foundation, and that McCabe had defended the agent's authority to pursue the issue.
That leak confirmed the existence of the probe, the report said, which Comey had up to that point refused to do.
The report said that McCabe "lacked candor" in a conversation with Comey when he said he had not authorized the disclosure and didn't know who had done so. The IG also found that he lacked candor when questioned by FBI agents on multiple occasions since that conversation.
McCabe has denied any wrongdoing and said the inspector general's conclusions relied on mischaracterizations and omissions, including of information favorable to McCabe.