DOJ Declines to Pursue Criminal Charges against Andrew McCabe
by Zachary EvansThe Justice Department on Friday informed legal counsel for former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe that it would not seek to file criminal charges against McCabe over his misleading federal investigators in connection with a 2016 press leak.
“Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the Government at this time, we consider the matter closed,” reads a letter from Justice Department officials to McCabe’s counsel.
“At long last, justice has been done in this matter,” McCabe lawyers Michael Bromwich and David Schertler said in response. “We said at the outset of the criminal investigation, almost two years ago, that if the facts and the law determined the result, no charges would be brought.”
In March 2018, McCabe was fired from the FBI hours before his retirement following a report from the Justice Department Inspector General that he had lied under oath regarding a 2016 leak to a Wall Street Journal reporter. The leak concerned the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
In April 2018 the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General sent a criminal referral against McCabe to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. That referral said McCabe’s leak did not serve the “public interest” and was made “to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership.”