Guest post by Joe Hoft

The IG’s report related to terminated and humiliated former FBI Head Andrew McCabe is 39 pages in length. (See report here)

Below is a list of the most significant points in the report –

1. In the second paragraph of the introduction of the IG’s report, now infamous cheater and Peter Strzok mistress, and McCabe’s former Special Counsel, Lisa Page, is implicated as being involved in McCabe’s crimes. (p.1)

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2. Clinton Foundation was under investigation in 2016 but the FBI decided not to release this information to the public. This information was finally leaked just before the election to the Wall Street Journal and confirmed in a second leak instigated by McCabe. (p. 1)

3. In McCabe’s leak to the WSJ, he refutes that he was being impartial to Clinton due to his connections from his wife’s State Senate run. He then leaked that the Justice Department tried to shut down Clinton Foundation investigation but by doing this confirmed to the public in his leak that the investigation was in place. (p. 1)

4. The FBI hid the Clinton Foundation investigation from the public and it was not confirmed until the McCabe leak on October 30th, 2016. The FBI decided that it was in the public interest not to share this information with Americans before the 2016 election. The reasonableness of the decision to not report to the public the Clinton Foundation investigation is not addressed by the IG. (p. 3)

5. McCabe told Comey he didn’t know who leaked and therefore Comey claims he didn’t know about McCabe’s leak. (p. 2)

6. McCabe lied numerous times to either investigators or inspectors and said he didn’t know why Lisa Page leaked information to the Wall Street Journal. He even lied and said that he was outside of Washington D.C when the leak occurred which was not true. (p. 2)

7. When confronted with lying to investigators, McCabe lied and denied previously lying to investigators. (p. 2)

8. IG Report redacts an individual’s name who discussed the Clinton Foundation investigation with James Comey, McCabe and the Special Counsel (presumably Lisa Page). (p. 7)

9. McCabe states that leaking to the WSJ was the only time in his career “where he had authorized the disclosure to the media of a one-on-one discussion that he had with a member of the Department’s leadership.” (p. 9) [Note this leaves open the possibility of other leaks.]

10. FBI Deputy Assistant Director (Peter Strzok) texted Page about a WSJ article and they noted that they were not upset about McCabe throwing Justice Department official under the bus. That day the DOJ was noted in an article in the WSJ as criticizing Comey for informing Congress of the Clinton Foundation investigation. (p. 10) [Note how the FBI and DOJ only communicate through leaks!]

11. A meeting was held on October 31st, 2016 where Comey reportedly stated “Need to figure out how to get our folks to understand why leaks hurt our organization”. (p. 11) [The audacity!]

12. McCabe stated that he and Comey discussed on October 31st, 2016, the October 30th WSJ leak and says that he told Comey he authorized it. Comey states that he does not recall McCabe telling him that McCabe had authorized the call.

13. McCabe stated that many FBI officials knew he had authorized the October 30th leak to the WSJ. “However, none of the potential witnesses identified by McCabe (FBI-GC, Comey’s Chief of Staff, The Counterintelligence Assistant Director (“AD-CI”), and McCabe’s then-Chief of Staff ) corroborated this or recalled knowing at the time, or even now, that McCabe had authorized the disclosure.” (pp. 13-14)

14. McCabe refused to sign an inspector’s notes about his statements to the inspector, specifically noting that he [McCabe] did not know who leaked the information in the WSJ October 30th, 2016, report.

15. McCabe stated to an IG employee under oath that he did not know who authorized October 30th WSJ leak and then a couple days later called them back to correct what he said. (pp. 19 and 20)

Overall Comments

1. The tone of the memo chastises McCabe for leaking that the Clinton Foundation investigation was open, not to challenge the rationale for not sharing this investigation with the public, but rather criticizes McCabe for outing the Justice Department official trying to shut down the investigation. Although perhaps it may not be customary to challenge the Departments’ decisions, due to subject in the investigation [the Clinton Foundation], by not releasing the information about the investigation the FBI and DOJ prevented pertinent information from being reported to the American public significant to the election. This information was not released until October 30th in a leak to the WSJ.

2. Many of the FBI and DOJ characters in the report appear corrupt, coordinated and conspiring to assist with the cover up of the Clinton Foundation investigation and in leaking information to the press.

3. The report includes little mention of Anthony Weiner’s laptop emails other than to mention that a meeting was scheduled to get a search warrant to request the emails on October 27th, 2016. The emails were the suspected cause for Comey’s email to Congress on October 28th, 2016, announcing that the Hillary email scandal was being reopened. However, per text messages between Strzok and Page, the FBI knew about the emails in September 2016 and had sent a team to New York to review the emails at that time. [The Weiner emails may be what the Democrats are most fearful of being released to the public.]

4. McCabe [and others] clearly broke laws and FBI policies but no trial date is set as of today. However, the IG is drafting a letter to the FBI recommending actions to be taken.

There are numerous contradictions between FBI employees and each other and with DOJ employees. The FISA Court report on FISA abuses stated that James Clapper’s NSA had an institutional “lack of candor”. It is clear from this report that the FBI and DOJ have the same lack of candor.