Watchdog: McCabe misled investigators
Report finds he lied about role in Clinton leak
WASHINGTON — Andrew McCabe, the fired FBI deputy director, misled investigators and his own boss about his role in a news media disclosure about Hillary Clinton just days before the 2016 presidential election and authorized the release of information to “advance his personal interests,” according to a Justice Department watchdog report.
President Donald Trump, already furious over a forthcoming book from fired FBI Director James Comey, lashed out after the report’s release by saying McCabe had “LIED! LIED! LIED!” The inspector general report concludes that McCabe allowed FBI officials to disclose nonpublic information to a Wall Street Journal reporter for a story about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation, violating agency rules, and then misled FBI officials when questioned about it. It also reveals starkly contradictory accounts from McCabe and Comey about how the conversations with the reporter had come to take place.
McCabe, who was fired two days before his scheduled retirement last month, denied the report’s allegations in a detailed rebuttal statement.
McCabe’s statement noted that as deputy director he had full authority to authorize sharing information with the media and said he permitted subordinates to do so in this case to correct a false narrative that he had tried to stymie an FBI probe into the Clinton Foundation.
McCabe has also said his dismissal was part of the Trump administration’s “ongoing war” on the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, adding that he was singled out because of the “role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath” of Comey’s firing.
The inspector general report does not square with the Republican narrative of the FBI as a politically biased institution, since the Oct. 30, 2016, story contained derogatory information about Clinton and underscored FBI interest in investigating her foundation. But its conclusion may also be hard for Democrats to embrace, given its harshly critical suggestion that McCabe had put his personal reputation above the interests of the FBI.
The findings, which had trickled out in news reports over the last month, led FBI disciplinary officials to recommend that the Justice Department fire McCabe. Attorney General Jeff Sessions dismissed him for what he described as a lack of candor.