Weekly Update: New FBI/Clinton scandal - ... Posted: Nov 4th, 2017 - 12:27 pm
New FBI/Clinton Scandal — FBI Deputy Director McCabe Delayed Recusing Himself from the Clinton Email Case
Often overlooked amid the shenanigans of two former FBI Directors – James Comey and Robert Mueller – are questions about FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was actually acting director for a time after Comey was fired.
Consider the news we broke today. We uncovered Justice Department records showing that McCabe did not recuse himself from the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsecure, non-government email server until Tuesday, November 1, 2016, just one week prior to the presidential election! (The Clinton email probe was codenamed “Midyear Exam.”)
While working as Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office, McCabe controlled resources supporting the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. An October 2016 internal FBI memorandum labeled “Overview of Deputy Director McCabe’s Recusal Related To Dr. McCabe’s Campaign for Political Office,” details talking points about McCabe’s various potential conflicts of interest, including the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s illicit server, which officially began in July 2015:
While at [Washington Field Office] did Mr. McCabe provide assistance to the Clinton investigation?
After the referral was made, FBI Headquarters asked the Washington Field Office for personnel to conduct a special investigation. McCabe was serving as [Assistant Director] and provided personnel resources. However, he was not told what the investigation was about. In February 2016 McCabe became Deputy Director and began overseeing the Clinton investigation.
The Overview also shows if asked whether McCabe played any role in his wife’s campaign, the scripted response was: “No. Then-[Assistant Director] McCabe played no role, attended no events and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind.”
In June 2017, Circa reported that social media photos showed “McCabe wearing a T-shirt supporting his wife’s campaign during a public event and then posting a photo on social media urging voters to join him in voting for his wife.” The Justice Department IG is investigating whether McCabe properly disclosed payments to his wife’s campaign on his ethics report, as well as possible Hatch Act violations.
The Overview attempts to deflect concerns regarding the timing of the announcement of Mrs. McCabe’s candidacy in mid-March 2015, fast on the heels of Clinton’s illicit server becoming public knowledge.
The news that Clinton used a private email server broke March 2, 2015. Five days later, former Clinton Foundation board member and Democrat party fundraiser, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe met with the McCabes to recruit her for a run for the state Senate. She announced her candidacy on March 12. Soon afterward, McAuliffe-aligned political groups donated nearly $700,000 (40% of the campaign’s total funds) to McCabe’s wife for her campaign. Around that time, Gov. McAuliffe would also come under criminal investigation by the FBI.
An April 29, 2015, document titled “Protocol regarding Potential Conflicts of Interest” sent from the Washington Field Office to various FBI officials – and self-approved by McCabe – indicates that he was “consulting with individuals within the Washington Field Office and [FBI headquarters]” prior to the announcement of his wife’s political campaign:
In March 2015, Dr. Jill McCabe announced her candidacy for Virginia State Senate. Dr. McCabe is the wife of Washington Field Office ADIC Andrew McCabe. Prior to Dr. McCabe’s official announcement, the [assistant director] consulted with individuals within [Washington Field Office] and [FBI headquarters] to identify limitations on his participation in her campaign and to identify areas where Dr. McCabe’s campaign may present potential conflicts of interest for the ADIC in WFO investigations and operations. [Emphasis added]
While this same document advises against McCabe’s involvement in “all public corruption investigations” concerning the state of Virginia during the campaign, no restrictions are advised in his involvement in Virginia cases following the campaign or his involvement with the Clinton email investigation. Also, it advises with respect to other conflicts of interest the Washington Field Office “will assess all other matters on a case-by-case basis,” and provide a “protocol” for their examination, which would be reviewed by a subordinate of McCabe’s, the Chief Division Counsel.
Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a July 24, 2017, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to an October 24, 2016, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01494)). Judicial Watch seeks:
All records of communication between FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and other FBI or Department of Justice officials regarding ethical issues concerning the involvement of Andrew McCabe and/or his wife, Dr. Jill McCabe, in political campaigns;
All records related to ethical guidance concerning political activities provided to Deputy Director McCabe by FBI and/or DOJ officials or elements.
(We have more lawsuits about McCabe on related matters, which you can read about here and here.)
The FBI is compromised. Mr. McCabe should have been nowhere near the Hillary Clinton investigations. That he saw fit to recuse himself only days before the election further demonstrates the FBI’s Clinton email investigation was a sham. No wonder it took a year and a federal lawsuit to get these records. And it is well past time for the Justice Department to reopen the Clinton email investigation.
Conservatives Excluded as Leftists Got $1 Billion from Companies Sued by DOJ
The Obama administration wasn’t as much a presidential administration as that term is normally used, but rather a radical leftist operation that used the government to further its revolution. It often illegally or illicitly “weaponized” the agencies under its control to advance its agenda. Among the more blatant examples is using the Justice Department to extort money from banks allied with left-wing groups. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the story.
An Obama-era scheme that forced companies sued by the government to fund leftist groups overtly excluded conservative organizations, according to internal Department of Justice (DOJ) records obtained by Judicial Watch. As part of settlements, the DOJ would often give the corporations—mainly big banks—double credit if they gave money to leftwing interest groups handpicked by the administration instead of paying the government. The new records demonstrate a collaborative effort among high-level officials in the Office of the Assistant Attorney General (OAAG) and the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to ensure conservative groups did not receive any settlement cash.
The operation is known as a DOJ “slush fund” that filled the coffers of Obama-allied nonprofits such as the National Council of La Raza, Urban League and National Community Reinvestment Coalition. Earlier this year Judicial sued the DOJ for records relating to the problematic Obama administration policy of settling government lawsuits against corporate defendants by requiring that the corporations make “donations” to leftwing interest groups. Back in 2010 Judicial Watch sued the DOJ over a similar program in which the agency’s Civil Rights Division directed large sums of cash settlements in discrimination lawsuits to organization that were not officially connected to the lawsuits. Recipients were also leftist groups that aligned with Obama’s ultra-liberal agenda.
The new batch of DOJ records shed more light on how conservative nonprofits were not only banned from receiving money, but also singled out. One electronic mail from a redacted DOJ source to a pair of officials in the OAAG reads: “Concerns include: a) not allowing Citi to pick a statewide intermediary like the Pacific Legal Foundation (does conservative property-rights free legal services) …” Another email, from the same OAAG officials to the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) says: “Here are some examples of consumer relief items that we believe require the banks to do more than they would be economically motivated to do on their own in Citi…” The examples are redacted but one line reads: “Make donations to categories of entities we have specified (as opposed to what the bank might normally choose to donate to).”
A House Judiciary Committee investigation determined earlier this year that the DOJ used the mandatory donations to direct almost a billion dollars to liberal activist groups in just two years. It gets better. The congressional probe found that “activist groups which stood to gain from mandatory donation provisions were involved in placing those provisions in the settlements.”
Thankfully, Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions put an end to the madness over the summer, writing in a memo that the DOJ will no longer engage in the practice. “Effective immediately, Department attorneys may not enter into any agreement on behalf of the United States in settlement of federal claims or charges, including agreements settling civil litigation, accepting plea agreements, or deferring or declining prosecution in a criminal matter, that directs or provides for a payment or loan to any non-governmental person or entity that is not a party to the dispute.”
A new administration could reverse the directive however, so the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte, introduced a bill that will ban all federal agencies from funneling money to third parties that weren’t victims in government lawsuits. The measure appears to have bipartisan support and does not affect payments to provide restitution to victims that have suffered harm. “It was obvious from the outset that mandatory donation provisions create opportunities for abuse,” Congressman Goodlatte says in a statement. “That such abuses actually occurred is now proven.”
The Obama administration also used the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a political tool to target conservatives. Judicial Watch uncovered that major scandal and sued to obtain droves of government documents that show how the agency singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as patriot and Tea Party in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status. The Obama IRS also illegally colluded with another government agency—the Federal Election Commission (FEC)—to crack down on conservative nonprofits during the 2012 election cycle.
LINK/URL: Weekly Update: New FBI/Clinton scandal
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