The Department of Justice has rejected CNN contributor Andrew McCabe’s appeal to avoid facing prosecution after federal prosecutors recommended that he be charged for allegedly engaging in criminal activity.
McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, “was fired from the FBI just before his retirement in March 2018 after the Justice Department’s internal watchdog concluded that he had improperly authorized a leak about a federal investigation into the Clinton Foundation in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign,” USA Today reported.
“The U.S. attorney, Jessie Liu, recommended that McCabe should be indicted, and in a meeting with Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen at the Justice Department late last month, McCabe’s attorneys argued against that recommendation, one of the sources said,” CNN, McCabe’s employer, reported. “On Thursday, a senior DOJ official sent McCabe’s legal team an email saying that that appeal had been rejected, according to a second person who is close to the legal team.”
NewsBusters’ Curtis Houck noted that CNN buried the fact that McCabe is a paid CNN employee in the last sentence of its report.
Republican lawmakers, who began weighing in almost immediately, called for McCabe to face accountability for his alleged actions.
“Wow. Reports that a U.S. Attorney has formally recommended pursuing CRIMINAL CHARGES against former Deputy FBI Director and CNN analyst Andrew McCabe for lying to investigators,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) tweeted. “Hopefully this is merely the beginning of long overdue accountability. Justice will be done.”
“Andrew McCabe was fired for good reason, violated his oath, weaponized his DOJ position & broke the law. McCabe should be indicted & tried,” Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) tweeted. “If convicted, he should be imprisoned. It’s time.”
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe in March 2018 after the inspector general found he had repeatedly misstated his involvement in a leak to The Wall Street Journal regarding an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation,” Fox News reported. “The IG report faulted McCabe for leaking information to then-Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin Barrett for an Oct. 30, 2016 story titled ‘FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe.’ The story — written just days before the presidential election – focused on the FBI announcing the reopening of the Clinton investigation after finding thousands of her emails on a laptop belonging to former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin.”
Journalists have been critical of CNN’s decision to hire McCabe as a contributor in light of his ongoing legal matters.
The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald tweeted: “CNN can have Andrew McCabe, their new national security analyst, cover his own criminal trial for CNN for lying to the FBI. If getting fired for lying to FBI helps you get a job reporting the news at CNN (see also: CLAPPER, JAMES), why should criminal charges be any impediment?”
“McCabe is still the subject of a federal criminal investigation,” Journalist Yashar Ali tweeted. “2. McCabe is suing the Justice Department and the FBI. Is CNN going to disclose that fact every time he is on air? I’m assuming they’re hiring him to talk about matters related to criminal justice and not the stock market.”