Report: Acting FBI Director Is the Subject of 3 Investigations
Our friends at Circa, Jay Soloman and Sara A. Carter, report that acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a central player in the Russia election case, is now the focus of three separate federal administrative inquiries into allegations about his behavior as a senior bureau executive, according to documents and interviews.
The documents show the allegations being reviewed range from sexual discrimination to improper political activity, say Soloman and Carter.
Circa reported Monday that former supervisory special agent Robyn Gritz, a decorated counterterrorism agent, has filed a sexual discrimination and retaliation complaint that names McCabe and other top FBI officials.
Gritz also filed a complaint against McCabe with the main federal whistleblower agency in April, alleging social media photos she found show he campaigned for his wife’s Virginia state senate race in violation of the Hatch Act.
And it is that Hatch Act complaint that has landed like a grenade in McCabe’s shorts.
The Office of U.S. Special Counsel, the government’s main whistleblower agency, is investigating whether McCabe’s activities supporting his wife Jill’s Democratic campaign for Virginia state senate in 2015 violated the Hatch Act’s prohibition against FBI agents campaigning in partisan races.
The agency’s probe was prompted by a complaint in April from a former FBI agent who forwarded social media photos showing 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.
“I am voting for Jill because she is the best wife ever,” McCabe put on a sign that he photographed himself holding. The photo was posted on her social media page a few days before the election, in response to Dr. Jill McCabe’s plea to “help me win” by posting photos expressing reasons why voters should vote for her, according to the complaint.
Other social media photos in the complaint showed McCabe’s minor daughter campaigning with her mother while wearing an FBI shirt and McCabe voting with his wife at a polling station.
The Hatch Act prohibits FBI employees from engaging “in political activity in concert with a political party, a candidate for partisan political office or a partisan political group.”
It defines prohibited political activity as “any activity directed at the success or failure of a partisan group or candidate in a partisan election.”
An ethics expert told Circa the photos raised legitimate questions about McCabe’s compliance with the law.
However, the most damning evidence of a Hatch Act violation came from an open records request filed with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s office.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s office released to Circa under the Freedom of Information Act documents showing McCabe attended a meeting with his wife and the governor on a Saturday in March 2015 specifically to discuss having Jill McCabe run for state Senate in Virginia as a Democrat.
“This is a candidate recruitment meeting. McCabe is seriously considering running against State Senator Dick Black. You have been asked to close the deal,” the briefing memo for McAuliffe read.
Included in the governor’s briefing package was a copy of McCabe’s FBI biography. The biography made clear that Andrew McCabe was a senior executive who, at the time, oversaw the FBI’s Washington field office that among many tasks supervised investigations in northern Virginia.
At the time of the meeting, write Soloman and Carter, published reports indicate agents in the Washington field office were involved in both a probe of McAuliffe and of the governor’s close friend Hillary Clinton and her private email account.
The Hatch Act poster hanging inside FBI offices to urge compliance clearly states that an FBI employee “may not knowingly solicit or discourage the political activity of any person with business before the agency.”
FBI sources, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said agents were specifically concerned that McCabe’s meeting with McAuliffe about supporting Jill McCabe’s campaign constituted a solicitation of a person with business before the bureau.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has now weighed in asking the Justice Department to investigate McCabe:
“While Mr. McCabe recused himself from public corruption cases in Virginia—presumably including the reportedly ongoing investigation of Mr. McAuliffe regarding illegal campaign contributions—he failed to recuse himself from the Clinton email investigation, despite the appearance of conflict created by his wife’s campaign accepting $700,000 from a close Clinton associate during the investigation,” Grassley wrote in seeking the IG probe.
When questions first arose about the money Jill McCabe’s campaign got from McAuliffe, the FBI insisted that Andrew McCabe never used his FBI role to aid her campaign and “did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind” for his wife’s political run. The documents from McAuliffe’s office and the $700,000 given to his wife’s campaign make that appear to be a lie.
With three investigations hanging over his head and an obvious lie now made public it’s time for Andrew McCabe to go. If he won’t retire once his successor, Christopher Wray, is confirmed, then Wray’s first act should be to fire him. {eoa}
This article was originally published at ConservativeHQ.com. Used with permission.
