{"id":96996,"date":"2018-03-21T17:09:15","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T21:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=96996"},"modified":"2018-03-21T17:09:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T21:09:15","slug":"mccabe-approved-criminal-investigation-of-ag-jeff-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=96996","title":{"rendered":"McCabe Approved Criminal Investigation of AG Jeff Session"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>EXCLUSIVE: Fired FBI official authorized criminal probe of Sessions, sources say<\/h1>\n<p><!--more-->By MIKE LEVINE<br \/>\nABC News<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/video\/embed?id=53831748\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"border:none;\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Nearly a year before Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired senior\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_FBI_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/whitehouse\/james-b.-comey.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FBI<\/a>\u00a0official Andrew McCabe for what Sessions called a &#8220;lack of candor,&#8221; McCabe oversaw a federal criminal investigation into whether Sessions lacked candor when testifying before Congress about contacts with Russian operatives, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.<\/p>\n<div class=\"abcn-alert-insert\">\n<h3>Interested in\u00a0Trump Administration?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p>Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly accused Sessions of misleading them in congressional testimony and called on federal authorities to investigate, but McCabe&#8217;s previously-unreported decision to actually put the attorney general in the crosshairs of an FBI probe was an exceptional move.<\/p>\n<p>One source told ABC News that Sessions was not aware of the investigation when he decided to fire McCabe last Friday less than 48 hours before McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, was due to retire from government and obtain a full pension, but an attorney representing Sessions declined to confirm that.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, several top Republican and Democratic lawmakers were informed of the probe during a closed-door briefing with Deputy Attorney General\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_Rod Rosenstein_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/whitehouse\/rod-rosenstein.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rod Rosenstein<\/a>\u00a0and McCabe, ABC News was told.<\/p>\n<p>By then, Sessions had recused himself from the FBI\u2019s probe of Russia\u2019s meddling in the 2016\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_presidential election_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/elections\/presidential-election.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">presidential election<\/a>, giving Rosenstein oversight of the growing effort.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"e_image_53915976\" class=\"e_image e_full\">\n<h5 class=\"e_full_container\"><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s.abcnews.com\/images\/US\/McCabe-Sessions-testify-02-gty-jrl-180321_hpMain_4x3_992.jpg\" alt=\"PHOTO: US Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on November 14, 2017, in Washington, DC.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" border=\"0\" \/><\/picture><span class=\"credit\">Brendan Smialowski\/AFP\/Getty Images &#8211;\u00a0<\/span>US Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on November 14, 2017, in Washington, DC.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Within weeks, Rosenstein appointed special counsel\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_Robert Mueller_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/us\/robert-s.-mueller.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Robert Mueller<\/a>\u00a0to take over the investigation and related inquiries, including the Sessions matter.<\/p>\n<p>Two months ago, Sessions was interviewed by Mueller&#8217;s team, and the federal inquiry related to his candor during his confirmation process has since been shuttered, according to a lawyer representing Sessions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Special Counsel&#8217;s office has informed me that after interviewing the attorney general and conducting additional investigation, the attorney general is not under investigation for false statements or perjury in his confirmation hearing testimony and related written submissions to Congress,&#8221; attorney Chuck Cooper told ABC News on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>According to the sources, McCabe authorized the criminal inquiry after a top Democrat on\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_the Senate_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/us\/united-states-senate.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Senate<\/a>\u00a0Judiciary Committee, Sen.\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_Patrick Leahy_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/us\/patrick-leahy.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Patrick Leahy<\/a>, D-Vermont, and then-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wrote a letter in March 2017 to the FBI urging agents to investigate &#8220;all contacts&#8221; Sessions may have had with Russians, and &#8220;whether any laws were broken in the course of those contacts or in any subsequent discussion of whether they occurred.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unclear how actively federal authorities pursued the matter in the months before Sessions&#8217; interview with Mueller\u2019s investigators. It&#8217;s also unclear whether the special counsel may still be pursuing other matters related to Sessions and statements he has made to Congress \u2013 or others \u2013 since his confirmation.<\/p>\n<p>During his confirmation in January 2017, Sessions told the Senate committee that he had not been in contact with anyone connected to the Russian government about the 2016 election. He also said he was &#8220;not aware&#8221; of anyone else affiliated with the Trump campaign communicating with the Russian government ahead of the election.<\/p>\n<p>Two months later, after a Washington Post report disputed what Sessions told Congress, the attorney general acknowledged he had met the Russian ambassador twice during the presidential campaign, but insisted none of those interactions were &#8220;to discuss issues of the campaign.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sessions &#8220;made no attempt to correct his misleading testimony until The Washington Post revealed that, in fact, he had at least two meetings with the Russian ambassador,&#8221; Leahy and Franken said in a statement at the time. &#8220;We know he would not tolerate dishonesty if he were in our shoes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sessions called any suggestions that he misled lawmakers &#8220;false.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, charges subsequently brought by Mueller raised more questions over Sessions&#8217; testimony to Congress.<\/p>\n<p>In November, former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos admitted to federal authorities that during the campaign he was in frequent contact with Russian operatives about setting up a meeting between Trump and Russian President\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_Vladimir Putin_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/world\/vladimir-putin.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vladimir Putin<\/a>, and Papadopoulos pitched the idea to Sessions and Trump at a meeting of the then-candidate&#8217;s foreign policy team in March 2016.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"e_image_53916042\" class=\"e_image e_full\">\n<h5 class=\"e_full_container\"><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s.abcnews.com\/images\/US\/McCabe-Sessions-testify-01-gty-jrl-180321_hpMain_4x3_992.jpg\" alt=\"PHOTO: Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill, June 7, 2017. \" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" border=\"0\" \/><\/picture><span class=\"credit\">Cheriss May\/NurPhoto via Getty Images &#8211;\u00a0<\/span>Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill, June 7, 2017.<\/h5>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Sessions later told lawmakers he &#8220;always told the truth,&#8221; insisting he didn\u2019t recall the March 2016 meeting when first testifying to Congress. He later remembered the meeting after reading news reports about it, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are concerned by Attorney General Sessions&#8217; lack of candor to the Committee and his failure thus far to accept responsibility for testimony that could be construed as perjury,&#8221; Leahy and Franken said in their March 2017 letter to then-FBI director\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_James Comey_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/issues\/james-comey-firing.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Comey<\/a>, who was fired by Trump two months later.<\/p>\n<p>It is a federal crime for anyone to knowingly provide false information to Congress \u2013 or to a federal law enforcement agency. No charges have been announced against McCabe, and there\u2019s no indication that the FBI has recommended he be charged.<\/p>\n<p>McCabe was fired Friday after the\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_Justice Department_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/us\/justice-department.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Justice Department<\/a>&#8216;s inspector general concluded that McCabe misled investigators looking into how Justice Department and FBI officials handled matters associated with the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>In October 2016, hoping to push back on a series of news reports questioning whether he might be trying to protect Hillary Clinton, McCabe authorized two FBI officials to speak with a reporter about his efforts to boost the FBI&#8217;s investigation of the Clinton Foundation. When he was questioned later about that decision, McCabe &#8220;lacked candor \u2013 including under oath \u2013 on multiple occasions,&#8221; Sessions said in a statement announcing McCabe&#8217;s firing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and accountability,&#8221; Sessions said. &#8220;As the [FBI&#8217;s ethics office] stated, &#8216;all FBI employees know that lacking candor under oath results in dismissal and that our integrity is our brand.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McCabe vehemently denies misleading investigators, saying in his own statement that he is &#8220;being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For more than a year, Trump and other Republicans have questioned whether McCabe harbored a political bias when making law enforcement decisions as deputy director. McCabe&#8217;s critics point to his ties to Democrats, particularly his wife&#8217;s failed Democratic run for state senate in Virginia nearly three years ago.<\/p>\n<p>But in an interview with ABC News, McCabe insisted politics was &#8220;absolutely not&#8221; a factor in any of the decisions he made, noting he has considered himself a Republican all his life.<\/p>\n<p>A representative for McCabe declined to comment for this article.<\/p>\n<p>Franken, one of the two senators who pushed the FBI to investigate Sessions, resigned from Congress in December amid several claims of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8211;ABC News&#8217; Trish Turner and Matt Mosk contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/exclusive-fired-fbi-official-authorized-criminal-probe-sessions\/story?id=53914006\">http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/exclusive-fired-fbi-official-authorized-criminal-probe-sessions\/story?id=53914006<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EXCLUSIVE: Fired FBI official authorized criminal probe of Sessions, sources say<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}