G-MAN CLEARED
Feds drop case vs. FBI boss bashed by Trump
The Justice Department at long last closed a criminal investigation into ex-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe on Friday without bringing any charges — a decision that’s likely to anger President Trump.
Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington informed McCabe’s lawyers in a morning phone call that they had dropped the nearly twoyear-long investigation into whether the former G-man lied to a Justice Department watchdog about a 2016 media leak.
Michael Bromwich and David Schertler, McCabe’s lawyers, said their client was relieved.
“At long last, justice has been done in this matter,” they said in a statement. “We said at the outset of the criminal investigation, almost two years ago, that if the facts and the law determined the result, no charges would be brought. We are pleased that Andrew McCabe
and his family can go on with their lives without this cloud hanging over them.”
The decision to put McCabe out of legal limbo came one day after Attorney General William Barr publicly rebuked Trump for tweeting too much about politically sensitive investigations, especially one involving his longtime friend Roger Stone, whose case is being handled by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.
McCabe has for years been a target of Trump’s conspiratorial ire.
The president has without evidence claimed McCabe and his former boss, ex-FBI Director James Comey, tried to undermine his political rise by investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
The criminal investigation into McCabe stemmed from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s finding that the ex-deputy director mislead investigators in 2018 when questioned about a leak of information to a reporter about a since-shuttered investigation into the Clinton
. Horowitz punted his findings to the U.S. attorney’s office, which investigated the matter at length. McCabe has maintained he did not purposely mislead anyone.
McCabe, who spent 21 years in the FBI, was unceremoniously canned by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions on March 16, 2018 — just hours before he would have been eligible to retire with full benefits.
The axing was widely seen
Trump had publicly suggested McCabe should be stripped of his retirement pension.
“Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits,” Trump tweeted in December 2017. “90 days to go?!!!”
McCabe has sued the Justice Department over his firing, charging it was politically motivated and that his full retirement benefits should be reinstated. The lawsuit remains ongoing.