A new report from the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General reveals new information about former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's actions regarding an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
In Oct. 2016, McCabe, Trinity ’90, came into the spotlight when the Wall Street Journal reported that then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's political action committee and the Virginia Democratic Party—which have ties to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton—donated to his wife Jill McCabe's state senate campaign.
Jill McCabe had lost her bid the year before and McCabe was not overseeing the investigation into the Clinton Foundation at that time. When Jill McCabe announced she was running, her husband followed the necessary protocols, according to the 500-page report.
“On this issue, we believe McCabe did what he was supposed to do by notifying those responsible in the FBI for ethics issues and seeking their guidance," the report states.
However, the report, which was released Thursday, also says that FBI ethics officials did not “fully appreciate the potential significant implications” to McCabe and the FBI from the campaign donations from McAuliffe’s PAC to Jill McCabe’s campaign.
In fact, it says the FBI should have known about the donations since they “were public under Virginia law” and scrutinized them earlier. One of the recommendations of the report is for ethics officials to monitor campaign donations to spouses of FBI employees if they run for public office.
After the WSJ reported the campaign donations, then-FBI Director James Comey urged McCabe to recuse himself from the investigation, according to the report. On Nov. 1, McCabe told Comey he did not think he should recuse, but Comey insisted in light of the external perception and negative media attention.
McCabe voluntarily recused himself later that day, which the report found he was not required to do. But McCabe violated his recusal in a few instances, the DOJ report indicates.
In November, the WSJ reported a story about the Clinton Foundation investigation, after which McCabe had a conversation with William Sweeney, assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York office. McCabe, who was "angry," called about "leaks and the WSJ article."
He told investigators that the conversation was not him participating in the Clinton Foundation investigation, but rather a “logical follow-up to an ongoing conversation” with Sweeney about the general issue of leaks coming out of the FBI's New York office.
The other incident cited in the report happened later the same day. Regarding the November WSJ article, McCabe emailed Mike Kortan, FBI assistant director for public affairs. “I am curious as to why I keep stumbling across these things with no notice whatsoever from my OPA machine?... I would like to discuss solutions tomorrow," he wrote.
McCabe told investigators that his email to Kortan was "intended to address a 'persistent frustration' he had over not receiving timely notice by OPA of news articles of interest," according to the report. The investigators took issue with this.
"When we asked McCabe whether in retrospect he should have asked Kortan to be briefed or kept up to speed on matters he was recused from, he said, 'no, no' and reiterated that may have been why Kortan did not bring the article to his attention," the report states.
The Inspector General report stated that McCabe "encroached on his recusal obligations" because of those incidents. But it found no evidence that McCabe continued to supervise decisions regarding the Clinton investigations.
"Exposure to case related information by a recused employee when attending a meeting or briefing, including receiving information about news articles related to the recused matter, is a form of participation that must be avoided," the investigators noted.
McCabe, who stepped down from his FBI post in January, is now seeking access to documents the DOJ referenced as justification for his firing.
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Class of 2019
Editor-in-chief 2017-18,
Local and national news department head 2016-17
Born in Hyderabad, India, Likhitha Butchireddygari moved to Baltimore at a young age. She is pursuing a Program II major entitled "Digital Democracy and Data" about the future of the American democracy.