It appears that the DOJ has become nothing more than a partisan attack dog as prosecutors state that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should be indicted for his mistatement to the Inspector General.
The chances that the Justice Department will seek an indictment against ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe grew more likely on Thursday, when the Department notified his attorneys that it would not overrule the recommendation by federal prosecutors that he be charged.
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It’s unclear what next steps will be taken to act on the prosectors’ recommendation, which, according to WaPo, also has the support of the U.S. Attorney in D.C. Jesse Liu.
The grand jury that had been investigating the claims against McCabe was called back this week after being off for several weeks, the Washington Post reported. But given that an indictment has not been publicly unveiled yet, it’s unclear whether the grand jury has already handed one down under seal, or if it declined to do so this week, or if it has been asked to reconvene in the future to do so.
McCabe was fired from the FBI by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, just as he was about to become eligible for his retirement benefits. McCabe has since
filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump pressured the Justice Department to oust him.
McCabe wrongly told the IG investigators that he knew nothing about a leak given to Devlin Barret at the Wall Street Journal about an argument between himself and a member of the DOJ over the FBI continuing to investigate the Clinton Foundation when the DOJ had been refusing to support the case. McCabe later himself came forward and corrected the record with the IG office and admitted that he was the source of the leak, and gave a recorded statement to that effect.
And the DOJ thinks this is worth prosecuting when Trump says that Hurricane Dorian is going to hit Alabama, then gets Mick Mulvaney to order Wilbur Ross to force NOAA to make the Birmingham office look bad? Really?
It’s been no secret that Trump has had a hard-on to strike back at McCabe. He’s made that quite obvious, and it’s also true that McCabe has already filed a wrongful termination suit against the FBI for his having been fired specifically to hurt his retirement by Jeff Sessions.
In his suit McCabe actually used Trump’s own tweets to prove that his termination was done to retaliate against his admitting he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016.
“On or about this date, Sessions, acting at Trump’s urging, asked Defendant Wray to fire Plaintiff,” the lawsuit said. “Wray refused on the basis that he would not allow personnel decisions at the FBI to be politicized. Wray suggested that he would resign if Sessions continued to apply such pressure.”
When Sessions eventually removed McCabe, who at that point was already on pre-retirement leave from the FBI, the attorney general pointed to an inspector general report that found that McCabe had lacked candor in the inspector general’s review of a Wall Street Journal story that McCabe helped facilitate.
McCabe’s lawsuit alleged that the disciplinary proceeding that followed that report was inappropriately rushed in response to Trump’s claim that McCabe was trying to “rac[e] the clock” until his retirement benefits kicked in.
The suit is bolstered by the fact that prior to talking to the IG investigators McCabe had sent an email to james Comey admitting that he was the source for the leak as an effort to correct the mischaracterizations that were occurring as a result of anti-Hillary leaks being provided by the NYC FBI office to James Kallstrom and Rudy Giuliani.
But Michael Bromwich, McCabe’s attorney, told The Washington Post that claims of email evidence “clearly show that Mr. McCabe advised Director Comey that he was working with colleagues at the FBI to correct inaccuracies before the stories were published, and that they remained in contact through the weekend while the interactions with the reporter continued.”
If they want to win a case beyond a reasonable doubt, they really don’t have that here. Even the argument that McCabe simply forgot and when he remembered later came forward on his to correct the record, is a very clear reasonable doubt that he was lying. This case is a waste of time, and will likely fail just as the case against former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig also failed.
But it’s not about winning the case, it’s about inconveniencing Trump’s political enemies. It’s about making his life difficult simply because they can.
UPDATE: [As noted in the comments] It appears that the Grand Jury refused to return an “true bill” to validate the indictment.
Whoops!!
Here are the rest of the daily events for this week in the Trump/Russia Timeline.
September 8th —
September 9th —
September 10th —
September 11th —
- Sen Gary Peters (D-MI) writes to the Pentagon Inspector General Glenn Fine asking him to look into the Air Force doing layovers at Turnberry, instead of Rammstein air base.
- Senate Dems demand that the Commerce Inspector General Peggy Gusfuston look into Ross threatening Weather Service Employees into supporting Trump’s lie about Alabama.
- Moody’s estimates that Trump’s trade war has cost 300,000 jobs.
- SCOTUS temporarily reverses the 9th Circuit hold on requiring asylum seekers to request asylum status in the countries they pass through before they can apply here, until the legal case is resolved.
- Trump demands 0% or less interest rates from the Federal Reserve. [This is what you would do in a recession, but we’re not in a recession yet, right?] and whines about a “suppression poll” that shows him losing to Demcrats, then he demands Internment camps for the Homeless. [Ok, welcome to Star Trek circa 2024 with their Sanctuary Districts.]
- Also it turns out the Trump told CoS Mulvaney to tell Ross to make the Weather service fall in line with his crap, and then, of course, he denies this.
- Democrats want to question Felix Sater a bit more about his involvement in Trump Tower Moscow and other issues.
- New York DA interviews Michael Cohen behind bars as part of their investigation of the Trump organization.
- Nobody knows who paid the Giuliani linked America First Pac $325,000.
- CBP detains and seperates a Bahamian child from their family fleeing the wake of Dorian.
- Mar-A-Lago intruder Yujing Zhang is convicted of trespassing and lying to the Secret Service.
- Several Media outlets sue to have the Deutsche Bank letter which potentially confirms that they have copies of Trump’s tax returns unredacted.
- Wall Street is panicked about Sen Warren’s candidacy, and she’s thrilled.
- CNN Polls: 71% of Americans don’t believe what Trump says.
- Trump decides to block flavored vapes to protect kids after 6 adults die from complications of vape products.
- Trump loving QAnon conspiracy nuts recommends drinking Turpentine to deal with intestinal parasites.
- Pentagon postpones their refueling deal with the Glasgow Prestwick Airport near Turnberry.
- Poll indicates that 59% of small business owners support Medicare For All.
- Secret files show how Republicans kept black people and students from voting.
September 12th —
September 13th —