GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe would be indicted for misleading investigators and fired FBI Director James Comey would be held accountable
“We came the closest ever to this country having a coup, and now we need accountability,” McCarthy told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures. “I respect this attorney general so greatly, that the way he has handled this, he believes in accountability, but more importantly, he believes in the rule of law.”
The California congressman and Republican House minority leader’s comments about the latest developments in the Trump-Russia saga came after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz completed a draft report on abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“We will see an indictment,” McCarthy said. “And remember what we are talking about here. Here’s the No. 2 at the FBI who is going after individuals trying to prosecute them believing they have lied when he is lying himself. When law enforcement doesn’t uphold the law and tries to put their thumb on the scale, that to me is where we really have to stand for accountability.”
The Justice Department rejected McCabe’s appeal last week to avoid criminal charges for repeatedly lacking candor with investigators. McCabe’s lawyers met with Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jessie Liu in an attempt to stave off charges, but Liu and the line prosecutors reviewing the case recommended that charges be brought. McCabe’s legal team appealed that decision to Rosen, who rejected that appeal on Thursday. But on Friday, McCabe’s lawyers cited some media speculation that the grand jury may have declined to return an indictment against McCabe and demanded answers from the DOJ.
Horowitz’s February 2018 report on McCabe concluded he improperly authorized his subordinates to confirm the existence of an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation to the Wall Street Journal as part of an effort by McCabe to push back against claims that he was unfairly favorable toward Clinton. Comey says he didn’t give McCabe permission to leak that information to the media. Up to that point, Comey had refused to acknowledge the existence of the Clinton-related investigation publicly, and Horowitz recounted how McCabe lacked candor multiple times when he denied authorizing the disclosure when speaking with Comey, with FBI investigators, and with the inspector general’s office.
Horowitz concluded that “the evidence is substantial” that McCabe misled investigators “knowingly and intentionally,” and he wrote that McCabe violated FBI Offense Code 2.6, which relates to lack of candor while under oath. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe the month after Horowitz’s investigation concluded, stating that McCabe “made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”
McCabe’s lawyers have called Horowitz’s report “deeply flawed,” and McCabe, who was hired by CNN last month, sued the DOJ, accusing Trump of forcing his subordinates to participate in an “unconstitutional plan and scheme” to have him fired.
McCabe, Comey, and others helped lead the FBI’s investigation into possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential election. McCabe and Comey both signed off on FISA surveillance warrant requests for Trump associate Carter Page, which they justified in part through their reliance on an unverified dossier authored by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, authored at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The FISA Court, which issued the warrants, was never informed about Steele’s Democratic benefactors.
“In the end, I do not believe Jim Comey will get off,” McCarthy said, adding the president was right to fire him.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017, after which Comey leaked information from memos of his conversations with Trump to the media in a successful effort to spark the appointment of a special counsel. A report from Horowitz in August harshly criticized Comey’s actions in sharing sensitive law enforcement information and leaking some classified information to his lawyer, but the DOJ declined to bring charges. Horowitz looked closely at the FBI leadership’s actions with the FISA Court during his latest investigation.
Besides the Horowitz report on FISA abuse now expected to be released in the coming weeks, Barr is also conducting his own investigation of the investigators with U.S. Attorney John Durham.
Author: Jerry Dunleavy
Source: Washington Examiner: ‘The closest we’ve come to a coup’: GOP House leader promises indictment for former FBI official McCabe
