Disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired in 2018 after the inspector general of the Department of Justice concluded he had leaked classified information and lied to bureau agents.
Lying to an FBI agent, by the way, is a crime. At least for most of us.
Now, the Department of Justice, which seems to be less in the business of justice and more in the business of political targeting and rewarding of President Joe Biden’s political allies, has agreed to expunge McCabe’s record and restore his pension, including $200,000 it believes it owes him.
The department this week settled a lawsuit brought by McCabe wherein he alleged he was terminated for political reasons. On top of reinstating his pension, the department also agreed to bestow upon McCabe all the benefits that come with retiring from the FBI in good standing.
“The agreement even made clear that he would receive the cuff links given to senior executives and a plaque with his mounted F.B.I. credentials and badge,” the New York Times reported.
It’s unclear whether the department plans to destroy its own inspector general’s report concluding that McCabe had, in fact, leaked classified information and lied to federal agents.
No matter! McCabe is taking a victory lap anyway.
“Politics should never play a role in the fair administration of justice and Civil Service personnel decisions,” he said this week in a statement. “I hope that this result encourages the men and women of the F.B.I. to continue to protect the American people by standing up for the truth and doing their jobs without fear of political retaliation.”
The situation with McCabe was rotten enough as-is before this announcement. Recall that the Department of Justice in February 2020 declined to pursue charges against McCabe, even though its own investigators determined he had definitely lied to federal law enforcement agents about leaking classified information.
In 2016, McCabe, who is now a paid CNN contributor, leaked sensitive details of the bureau’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation to the press. He then misled members of the FBI’s Inspection Division when they interviewed him about the leaks, according to a February 2018 Justice Department inspector general report. McCabe provided investigators with four misleading statements, three of which were while he was under oath.
Again, it cannot be stressed enough that giving false statements to federal investigators is a crime. In fact, it is the same crime for which the Department of Justice prosecuted former President Donald Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. (If only Flynn had worked for the FBI — or supported the Democrats!)
McCabe’s legal team maintained its client’s “story changed” because “he was surprised by and unprepared for the question during his May 2017 interview and was preoccupied with other major events,” the Washington Examiner’s Caitlin Yilek and Jerry Dunleavy reported last year. The inspector general found this explanation “wholly unpersuasive,” as it would be if it were invoked by anyone else under FBI questioning.
“It seems highly implausible that McCabe forgot in May what he recalled in detail during his November inspector general testimony,” said Inspector General Michael Horowitz. “In our view, the evidence is substantial that it was done knowingly and intentionally.”
The report also alleges that McCabe lied to not only the Office of the Inspector General, but also to then-FBI Director James Comey.
Moreover, Horowitz added, McCabe’s actions were “designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership [and] violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”
But now, we’re being told it’s as if the report never even happened. Again, the Department of Justice may wipe clean McCabe’s personnel file, but what are its plans for its own report?
Oh, by the way, on top of having his record expunged, his pension restored, and getting his cute retirement cuff links and plaque, the Department of Justice has agreed to pay McCabe’s $500,000 legal fees. As in, the Department of Justice is using your money to pay a dirty officer’s legal fees.
“What happened to Andrew was a travesty, not just for him and his family, but the rule of law,” one of McCabe’s lawyers said this week following the department’s announcement. “We filed this suit to restore his retirement benefits, restore his reputation, and take a stand for the rights of all civil servants, and that’s exactly what this settlement does.”
With the Department of Justice’s decision to pretend as if none of this ever happened, McCabe joins an exclusive club of disgraced former bureaucrats, including perjurers such as former CIA Director John Brennan and disgraced former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, to whom the law apparently does not apply.
Lastly, here’s an interesting detail from the New York Times’s report on the department’s announcement this week: “With the lawsuit resolved, the Justice Department and F.B.I. avoid the risk that moving toward a trial could produce embarrassing information through the discovery process and depositions.”
Well, at least they all avoided an “embarrassing” situation. All they needed to do was subvert the rule of law!
If any obscure private citizen did what McCabe did, he’d be rotting in a prison cell right now. But not McCabe — he gets a clean record and all the trappings that come with retiring from the FBI with honor and distinction.
How’s that for “justice”?
