Has Justice Finally Caught Up with Andrew McCabe?

By Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton

Has Justice Finally Caught Up with Andrew McCabe? The Justice Department Inspector General reportedly issued a criminal referral of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington. The wheels of justice may have finally caught up with McCabe for repeatedly lying under oath to investigators. It’s high time America had some accountability for his misconduct. We uncovered documents about McCabe’s conflicted handling of the Clinton investigation that should have triggered action months ago. Our finds on FBI and McCabe corruption generated irresistible public pressure for accountability. McCabe’s potential criminal acts, on James Comey’s watch, are further proof that both the Clinton email and Trump-Russia investigations were irredeemably compromised. The Clinton email investigation was a sham, and the Trump-Russia investigation is an abuse. Unfortunately the cover-up continues. The Justice Department and FBI are playing shell games, refusing to turn over McCabe text messages in our FOIA litigation. We discovered that McCabe was thoroughly steeped in a conflict of interest while he participated in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Despite massive contributions from Clinton ally Terence McAuliffe to McCabe’s wife’s 2015 political campaign, he did not recuse himself from the investigation until just a week before the 2016 presidential election. We also forced out documents showing that McCabe used FBI resources for his wife’s campaign. Separately, the FBI failed to turn over any McCabe text messages in a final response to our September 2017 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, we filled it on behalf of Jeffrey A. Danik, a 30-year veteran FBI supervisory special agent, against the Department of Justice for records related to McCabe (Jeffrey A. Danik v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01792)). This lawsuit seeks text messages and emails of McCabe referencing: Dr. Jill McCabe, Jill, Common Good VA, Terry McAuliffe, Clinton, Virginia Democratic Party, Democrat, Conflict, Senate, Virginia Senate, Until I return, Paris, France, Campaign, Run, Political, Wife, Donation, OGC, Email, or New York Times.  It’s a simple request yet, it has thus resulted in FBI games, obfuscation, and stonewalling. The Inspector General’s criminal referral is, just the first step in cleaning up the Deep State corruption that metastasized under the Obama administration and continues to this day. What is the FBI Hiding About the Comey Book?  James Comey might well be wishing he’d never written those notorious memos to himself about his conversations with President Trump, especially now that he is under investigation by the Justice Department Inspector General sharing some of the memos, which were classified, with his friend -- for the specific purpose of leaking them to the New York Times. Now that they have been released and made public, a key question remains: Was Comey given permission to use the memos in his book? I have a feeling that Comey got a special deal from the FBI because he was going after Trump and they were unwilling to say no to things they would have said no to if Comey were anyone else and Trump were not his target. We have now filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department for FBI pre-publication review and other records about former Director James Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00894)). We sued because the Justice Department failed produce any records in response to our March 16, 2018, FOIA request for:   All records of communications between the FBI and former FBI director James Comey relating to an upcoming book to be authored by Mr. Comey and published.   All records, including but not limited to forms completed by former FBI director James Comey, relating to the requirement for pre-publication review by the FBI of any book to be authored by Comey with the intent to be published or otherwise publicly available. Comey reportedly received an advance in excess of $2 million for his book which was published on April 17th. Former FBI agents and officials intending to write books concerning their tenure are customarily required to submit the entire transcript for pre-publication review. Comey illegally took and then leaked material from his FBI memos in order to get a special counsel appointed to target President Trump. And so we are asking questions about whether he received special treatment from the FBI to use these ill-gotten FBI documents in his book. This is the second Judicial Watch lawsuit on the Comey book deal. Shortly after Mr. Comey signed to write his book August 2017, we sent a FOIA request seeking FBI documents related to the deal and coordination on his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In January 2017, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department for failing to respond to these requests. On April 15, 2018, in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos about his book, Comey admitted to leaking conversations he had with President Trump in order to get a special prosecutor appointed, saying, “Look, it’s true … I gave that unclassified memo to my (friend), who was also acting as my lawyer, but this wasn’t a lawyer task, and asked him to give it to a reporter.” This echoes his controversial testimony before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the circumstances that led to his dismissal, the ongoing investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illicit email server. In November we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department for its records about Comey’s testimony (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-02316)). We have several other lawsuits pending for Comey-related records:   In June 2017, we filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking the memorandum written by former Director James Comey memorializing his meeting and conversation with President Trump regarding the FBI’s investigation of potential Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01189)).  In July 2017, we filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking metadata of the “Comey memos” and related records-management information (Judicial Watch, Inc., v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 17-cv-01520)).  In August 2017, we filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking the handling, storage, protection, dissemination, and/or return of classified information signed by Comey (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01624)).  In September 2017, we filed a FOIA lawsuit behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation against the U.S. Department of Justice seeking memoranda allegedly written by former FBI Director James Comey regarding his discussions with President Donald Trump and Trump’s aides (Daily Caller News Foundation v. U.S. Department Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01830)).  In January 2018, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the FBI to turn over the “Comey memos” for in camera review by the court. In doing so, the court rejected arguments by the Sessions’ Justice Department to dismiss the lawsuits seeking the Comey information. On February 2, Boasberg ruled that the “Comey memos” would not be made public. Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation are appealing the ruling.  As you can see, we are focused like a laser on the Comey-FBI corruption scandal that is illicitly seeking to undo the election of President Trump. Judicial Watch Sues DOJ for Comey-Mueller Communications   While James Comey parades around the country peddling books, and Robert Mueller continues drawing a salary in an investigation based on Comey’s now-public memos, we are asking a court to help us learn what these two Deep Staters were whispering to each other behind closed doors. Just today we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department for all records of communications relating to former FBI Director James Comey’s providing memoranda of his conversations with President Trump to Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00932)). We sued after the FBI informed us that it would neither “confirm nor deny” the existence of the materials for an August 4, 2017, FOIA request seeking:   All records of communications between former FBI Director James Comey and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, or members of SC Mueller’s investigative committee, relating to the return of memoranda of conversations, memoranda to the file or notes regarding same generated by Comey following conversations with government officials during his tenure as FBI Director. In other words, we want to know how Mueller and Comey handled the infamous Comey memos. On January 19, the FBI gave us a “Glomar” response, stating that it could, “neither confirm nor deny that the specific items you seek exist or do not exist as mere acknowledgment of these items would require the FBI to confirm or refute these assumptions,” which it claims could possibly interfere with law enforcement proceedings. Comey’s involvement with the special counsel was first revealed on June 8, 2017, when the former FBI director testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had leaked memos of his conversations with President Trump “because (he) thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.” On January 23, 2018, The New York Times reported that, “Mr. Comey met last year with Mr. Mueller’s investigators to answer questions about memos he wrote detailing interactions with the president that had unnerved him.” On June 13, 2017, Politico reported that Columbia University Law professor Daniel Richmond, a friend of James Comey, “turned over copies of the former FBI director's explosive memos… to the FBI, sidestepping a request by congressional committees to deliver the materials to Capitol Hill.” Here is the central issue: Did Comey improperly funnel his dishonest memos and collude with the Mueller special counsel operation as part of a vendetta against President Trump? And why is the DOJ still protecting James Comey and the out-of-control Mueller operation?