Andrew McCabe, AP Photo
U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward
with charges against Andrew
McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a
last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official and current CNN contributor.
McCabe -- the former deputy and acting director of the
FBI -- appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the
way up to Jeffrey Rosen, the deputy attorney general, but he rejected that
request, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The potential charges relate to DOJ inspector general findings against him regarding
misleading statements concerning a Hillary Clinton-related investigation.
A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received
an email from the Department of Justice which said, "The Department
rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this
matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States
Attorney’s Office."
McCabe spent 21 years with the FBI. He became the
acting director in May 2017 after President Trump fired former director James
Comey.
McCabe’s legal team met with Liu in person to make an
appeal not to move forward with any prosecution. They also met with Rosen, in
person, for the same reason, according to a person familiar with the meetings.
McCabe’s team also sent an “extensive” letter to Rosen
following the meetings, laying out their reasoning against moving forward with
a prosecution, according to the source.
Last month, a source
close to the process told Fox News that McCabe had a “target on his
back” because of the Justice Department inspector general findings.
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.
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.
That leak confirmed the existence of the probe, the
report said, which Comey had up to that point refused to do.
The report said that McCabe "lacked candor" in
a conversation with Comey when he said he had not authorized the disclosure and
didn't know who had done so. The IG also found that he lacked candor
when questioned by FBI agents on multiple occasions since that conversation.
McCabe has denied any wrongdoing and said the inspector
general's conclusions relied on mischaracterizations and omissions, including
of information favorable to McCabe.
McCabe has been attacked by the president since before he
was elected after news emerged in the fall of 2016 that McCabe's wife had
accepted campaign contributions from a political action committee associated
with former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe during an unsuccessful run for the
state Senate there. McAuliffe is a close ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who
was being investigated at the time for her use of a personal email server while
she was secretary of state.
After McCabe's hiring by CNN, Trump called it
“disgraceful.”
CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment
on Thursday.
Fox News' Catherine Herridge, Brian Flood,
Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
