Tag: Andrew McCabe

Rosenstein blocked FBI from probing Trump’s Russian ties — then ordered Mueller to ignore them as well

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One of the many oddities of the now-terminated Robert Mueller probe into Russian election interference and its links to various members of the Trump campaign and family, and in fact of all known federal probes into Russia’s Trump-related actions, has been the seeming lack of any counterintelligence probe on Donald Trump’s myriad, longstanding financial connections to Russia—and what role those financial ties have played both in the Russian government’s actions on behalf of Trump and their possible leverage over the now-president.

A new story from The New York Times‘ Michael Schmidt reports that that’s because in the first months of the new Trump administration, former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein shuttered that investigation—then ordered special counsel Robert Mueller to steer clear of it himself. It’s not that the counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s known ties to Russian crime figures, to money laundering, and his family’s stated reliance on Russian cash has been kept closely-held: It never existed. And it still doesn’t.

The accusation being leveled by acting Federal Bureau of Investigation director Andrew McCabe against Rosenstein goes further, suggesting that Rosenstein intentionally misled him. Schmidt reports that McCabe launched a counterintelligence probe into Trump’s Russian ties immediately after Trump’s firing of former FBI director James Comey, a move that was widely publicly speculated to be a Trump move to quash investigations into Russian election actions and into numerous of Trump’s top advisers and allies. The fear within the intelligence community was that Trump’s behaviors could be impacted by unknown Russian pressures, representing an immediate national security threat. Continue reading.

Right-Wing Outlets Use McCabe Case To Urge Stone Pardon

Right-wing media immediately seized on the announcement that former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe will not face criminal charges to generate outrage and push for President Donald Trump to pardon his longtime adviser Roger Stone.

Prosecutors announced that they are not pursuing criminal charges against McCabe in a letter on February 14. The investigation began in 2018 after a referral from the Justice Department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, who alleged that McCabe misled investigators about a media leak. The new announcement from prosecutors indicates that the case against McCabe has been closed.

Right-wing media have called for months for Trump to pardon his longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, who was convicted in federal court on seven charges, including lying to Congress and witness tampering. In particular, right-wing media have ramped up calls for Trump to pardon Stone as the Department of Justice and Stone’s attorneys submitted their recommendations to the court for his sentencing, which will be on February 20. Trump has already granted clemency or pardons to controversial right-wing figures during his term, including Joe Arpaio and Dinesh D’Souza, and the president said on February 12 that he won’t rule out a pardon for Stone. Continue reading.

Barr back on the hot seat

The Hill logoAttorney General William Barr is back under the microscope as he moves in new directions with cases involving President Trump’s close allies and political foes.

The latest developments — reexamining the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn and deciding against criminal charges for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — came just a day after the attorney general said Trump should not publicly insert himself into Justice Department affairs.

Less than 24 hours after Barr’s stunning ABC News interview, in which he called on Trump to stop tweeting about the department and its employees, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it would not bring charges against McCabe, once a target of frequent attacks by Trump. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. won’t charge Andrew McCabe, the former FBI official who authorized the investigation of President Trump

Washington Post logoThe Justice Department will not charge former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe with lying to investigators about a media disclosure, according to people familiar with the matter and McCabe’s legal team, ending a long-running inquiry into a top law enforcement official who authorized the bureau to investigate President Trump and soon became the commander in chief’s political punching bag.

The department revealed the decision to McCabe’s team Friday. The move was said to infuriate Trump, who has raged publicly and privately in recent months that McCabe and others he considers political enemies should be charged with crimes.

The decision could amplify the tension between Trump and his Justice Department, especially Attorney General William P. Barr, who on Thursday publicly rebuked the president for tweeting about Justice Department criminal cases. Continue reading.

How the tyrant in the White House just took our government to a new depth of depravity

AlterNet logoTo me, it feels ice-tinglingly creepy that the U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu in Washington wants to bring criminal charges against former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

The charge, basically that McCabe lied about a leak to a reporter, seems to come nowhere near close to supporting a criminal charge after 18 months of investigation, an expired grand jury and public humiliation for McCabe in firing him two days short of his professional resignation, killing off his pension. It seems that even a grand jury has decided not to react to the prosecution’s call for indictment.

But that’s not what’s wrong here. It is the White House squeezing the Justice Department to do its political bidding.

View the complete September 20 article by Terry H. Schwadron of Raw Story and DC Report on the AlterNet website here.

McCabe’s legal team says Trump’s attacks have made fair prosecution an ‘impossibility’

Washington Post logoFormer acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and his legal team have waged a vigorous public campaign to dispute allegations that he lied to investigators about a media leak.

Behind the scenes, they have been just as aggressive.

In recent months, McCabe’s attorneys shared with federal prosecutors and top Justice Department officials a point-by-point rebuttal of what they view as flaws in a possible criminal case against McCabe.

View the complete September 16 article by Matt Zapotosky on The Washington Post website here.

‘Ugly and deeply disturbing’: Trump’s DOJ appears primed to indict ex-FBI chief Andrew McCabe

AlterNet logoA top U.S. official in the has told former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that the Justice Department has rejected his argument to avoid charges for his conduct while working at the bureau, according to multiple reports on Thursday including NBC News.

This strongly suggests that the department will move forward with charges against McCabe, who has been a target of President Donald Trump’s wrath for his involvement in the Russia investigation. That probe, and concerns McCabe had about the president’s efforts to interfere in it, eventually led to the work and report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who provided ample evidence that the president attempted to obstruct justice in the course of the investigation. Democrats are currently investigating these facts for potentially impeachable offenses.

But the conduct that appears to have gotten McCabe into trouble with the Justice Department is actually largely unrelated to the Russia case.

View the complete September 12 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

McCabe sues FBI, DOJ, blames Trump for his firing

The Hill logoFormer FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is suing the Justice Department and FBI over his termination from the bureau last year, arguing that his firing was a politically motivated move stemming from President Trump‘s attacks against him and other Department of Justice (DOJ) officials.

McCabe alleges in the lawsuit filed Thursday that Trump administration officials “responded to Plaintiff’s two decades of unblemished and non-partisan public service with a politically motivated and retaliatory demotion in January 2018 and public firing in March 2018 — on the very night of Plaintiff’s long-planned retirement from the FBI.”

He claims that the actions have harmed his “reputation, professional standing, and dramatically reduced his retirement benefits.”

View the complete August 8 article by Olivia Beavers and Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

FBI’s McCabe and UK spy chief feared Russian link between Trump and Brexit: report

AlterNet logoThe former FBI deputy director and his counterpart at the U.K.’s MI5 intelligence agency privately shared concerns about the possible connections between the Brexit vote and Russia’s efforts to promote Donald Trump’s campaign.

Andrew McCabe, then the second-ranking FBI official, and Jeremy Fleming, the second-ranking British intelligence agency official at the time, exchanged text messages revealing their mutual surprise at the result of the EU referendum that U.S. officials saw as a “wake-up call,” reported The Guardian.

A person familiar with the matter told the newspaper that American officials were wary of Russian interference in western elections, but some within the FBI saw the Brexit vote as confirmation that those efforts had been successful.

View the complete July 30 article vey Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

“Trump, Inc.” and Former FBI Deputy Chief Andrew McCabe Compare Notes

McCabe talks about going after Russian organized crime in Brighton Beach as a young agent — and how some of those characters showed up in the Mueller report.

Before he became infamous for working on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Trump Russia investigation, former acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe investigated the Russian mob in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. McCabe has been asking some of the questions we at “Trump, Inc.” have asked ourselves about Trump’s business. So today, we compare notes.

In this conversation with Andrea Bernstein and Heather Vogell, of “Trump, Inc.,” McCabe talks about why it makes sense that some of the people he investigated in the 1990s have resurfaced in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, what questions he still has after the Mueller report and why he and former FBI director Jim Comey have said Trump’s management style reminds them of the mob.

Trump has long denied any wrongdoing, and he has said he was simply acting as an ordinary businessman in his Russia dealings.

View the complete May 29 article by Heather Vogell of ProPublica and Andrea Bernstein of WNYC in the ProPublica website here.