Report criticizes ex-FBI official
Internal findings say ousted deputy chief misled Comey, others about Clinton story.
WASHINGTON — An internal watchdog report concluded that Andrew McCabe, the fired deputy FBI director, repeatedly made misleading statements, including some to former FBI Director James B. Comey, about his efforts to influence a news story involving Hillary Clinton.
The report says McCabe either told Comey or led him to believe that he didn’t know who talked to a Wall Street Journal reporter who was preparing an article on friction between the FBI and the Justice Department over an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
That was one of four times McCabe “lacked candor” in discussing the story, the report said. And the inspector general concluded that McCabe, who has said he was only trying to defend the FBI’s reputation, was really trying to “advance his own interests at the expense of department leadership.”
The report, part of an inspector general’s examination of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigations during the 2016 presidential campaign, was sent to Congress on Friday — amid a rush of media coverage of Comey’s book detailing his actions during the investigation and conf licts with President Trump.
The report’s findings were cited by Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions last month when he fired McCabe, who was about to retire. The latenight firing came after a long campaign of pressure from Trump, part of his continuing attacks on the FBI and Justice Department.
Trump’s rage over McCabe and Comey continued Friday, as he used the report to again try to discredit the inquiry into his campaign’s dealings with Russians. “He LIED! LIED! LIED!” Trump tweeted about McCabe after the report’s release.
Ignoring the finding that McCabe had misled Comey, Trump said, “McCabe was totally controlled by Comey — McCabe is Comey!”
“No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes,” the president said.
A lawyer for McCabe, Michael R. Bromwich, blamed his client’s misleading statements on “misunderstanding, miscommunication, and honest failures of recollection based on the swirl of events around him, statements which he subsequently corrected.”
He said the allegations were too thin to support firing McCabe, and he criticized Sessions for submitting to pressure in his “rush to terminate” McCabe.
Bromwich also said McCabe had hired additional lawyers, including the firm of noted litigator David Boies, and is considering suing Trump and other officials for “wrongful termination, defamation, constitutional violations and more.”
In a tweet Friday night, Bromwich responded to Trump’s tweet calling McCabe a liar, writing: “Thank you for providing even more material for the defamation suit we are actively considering filing against you and your colleagues.”
The inspector general’s report said that McCabe authorized senior FBI officials to speak to a Wall Street Journal reporter. The reporter had heard complaints that McCabe was trying to put limits on an FBI investigation into conflicts at the Clinton Foundation. The bureau officials pushed back with another version of events, in which McCabe resisted pressure from a Justice Department official who was unhappy with the continuing pursuit of the Clinton family charity.
Comey said he told McCabe he was upset about the story, which he thought improperly confirmed the investigation and was likely to increase friction between the Justice Department and FBI.
“I had a strong impression he conveyed to me, ‘It wasn’t me, boss,’ ” Comey told the internal investigators. “And I don’t think that was by saying those words, I think it was most likely by saying, ‘I don’t know how this … gets in the media or why would people talk about this thing.’ ... And I actually didn’t suspect Andy.”
The report says McCabe twice told investigators that he didn’t know how the information got out. When he acknowledged that he had authorized the leak, he made more misleading statements by saying that he had told Comey about it, the report found.
Bromwich criticized the inspector general investigation as leaning too much on the “admittedly vague and uncertain” recollections of Comey about what McCabe told him.
Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the report makes clear that “Sessions made the right decision” in firing McCabe.
Another member of the Judiciary Committee, Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, said Saturday that the inspector general’s report confirmed there was corruption at the Department of Justice and the FBI.
“Andrew McCabe set a disgraceful standard for his subordinates by lying under oath & his termination was completely justified,” Biggs wrote on Twitter.
Rep. Mark Meadows (RN.C.) said McCabe’s firing made him concerned about the inquiries into Clinton’s emails and Russian interference in the 2016 election. “These revelations on McCabe raise serious concerns about the decisions of FBI and DOJ leadership in both 2016 and 2017,” Meadows tweeted Friday.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, said Friday that the rush to fire McCabe “casts a tremendous shadow over the integrity of the process.”
“The pattern by the White House to intimidate and malign law enforcement professionals and potential witnesses in special counsel [Robert S.] Mueller’s investigation grows more and more troubling,” she said.