Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is demanding the Department of Justice explain its decision to not press charges against former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for delivering false statements to investigators.
“The former FBI deputy director, Andrew McCabe, lied to the director of the FBI and, under oath, to his own internal investigators and the Justice Department’s inspector general,” Johnson said in a statement Tuesday. “These are established facts. The Justice Department’s decision to not pursue criminal charges against him send the wrong message, that government employees can lie with impunity… I will be seeking a full explanation from the Justice Department as to why they failed to hold Mr. McCabe fully accountable for his flagrant untruthfulness.”
On Friday, the Justice Department announced it was closing its investigation of McCabe for delivering false statements and orchestrating unauthorized leaks to the press without pressing any charges against the former senior law enforcement official.
In March of 2018, McCabe was fired after a report from the Justice Department inspector general found he had repeatedly lied to officials under oath. Last fall, McCabe joined CNN as a network contributor.
While at the FBI, McCabe also played a pivotal role in the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation probing the Trump campaign for links to Russia. McCabe signed off on at least one of the FISA applications authorizing government surveillance of American citizens that have recently been determined invalid.
Another earthshattering report from the Justice Department inspector general released in December revealed 17 glaring omissions of bias and fact in the four FISA applications to conduct deep-state surveillance operations on the Trump campaign. While the report concluded that political bias did not necessarily motivate opening Crossfire Hurricane surveillance, despite the report contents’ findings otherwise, the Justice Department inspector general also made clear to lawmakers that the report did not vindicate anybody associated with the investigation, including McCabe.
Several former Trump associates have been prosecuted for crimes of similar significance yet with far lesser public import.
