On today’s “Jack” podcast, co-host/Former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe aired his knowledge and (mostly negative) opinions about Special Counsel Robert Hur, and it was eye opening.
The segment about Hur begins about an hour an 28 minutes into the podcast with a clip from episode 7, the week that Hur’s appointment was announced a little more than a year ago (They are currently on episode 63.)
The entire segment (and the weekly podcast) are well worth listening to, but I will try to distill what McCabe says into bullet points.
What McCabe said last year:
- Hur was part of the Trump DOJ leadership team.
- Hur was Rod Rosenstein’s “point man” for the Mueller investigation and as such he and Rosenstein “presumably very carefully and quietly curtailed the investigation.” He was involved in keeping the investigation “in a lane.”
- There was a lot of “questionable or uncomfortable bleed over” between White House politics and DOJ operations.
McCabe’s current points about the Hur investigation:
- The Special Counsel is supposed to follow DOJ policies re: not impugning the character and reputation of people who are not being charged with crimes outside of the facts of the case. Hur crosses the line in his statements about Biden’s supposed memory issues and other things.
- The report creates headlines and then contradicts itself by saying there is “insufficient evidence” to support ideas such as that Biden “willfully detained” classified material.
- The part about the recording with the ghostwriter in which Biden mentions classified documents being stored nearby is especially (and seemingly purposely) misleading. Hur states in several places that these documents are about policies related to Afghanistan but then much further along in the report Biden never says what classified materials he was talking about and classified information isn’t included.
- The materials related to Afghanistan were found in a different place years later.
- The conclusions Hur draws were not related to the facts contained in the report.
- The real reason Biden wasn’t indicted isn’t because he is “old and cute” but because of the lack evidence and also that Biden would likely have successful defenses.
- The appointment of Hur seems like a misstep by Merrick Garland. If Garland wanted to seem non-partisan he should have chosen a Republican who didn’t serve in the Trump administration.
McCabe does also note in a spirit of full disclosure that Hur was personally involved in several of the aspects of McCabe’s firing. As you probably remember, McCabe, who stepped into the Acting Director of FBI role after the Comey firing, was himself fired for opening an investigation into Trump. The firing occurred just before McCabe retired. It was a transparent effort to punish him by depriving him of his pension. The DOJ also tried and failed to indict McCabe on (forgive the pun) trumped-up charges. McCabe sued for his pension and eventually reached a settlement with the US government.
I am sure more dirt will turn up about hatchet man Hur in the coming days. Meanwhile, Garland seems to be coming under increasing fire for his naivety about just how low Trump and his loyalists will go to get and keep power in Washington.
