House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz got roped into a politically-motivated scheme to protect President Trump, laying the groundwork to discredit the government watchdog’s work as he nears completion of a report on alleged surveillance abuses by the DOJ and FBI.
At the Aspen Security Forum this weekend, Schiff accused top Justice Department officials of pandering to Trump by instigating a “fast track” report last year about former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. His comments came as part of a broader answer to a question about whether he has concerns about Attorney General William Barr’s review of the origins of the Russia investigation.
Schiff claimed the president wanted McCabe, who briefly took over as acting FBI director after Trump fired James Comey in May 2017, investigated and his pension taken away and suggested someone such as former Attorney General Rod Rosenstein obliged the president by making a referral.
“The inspector general found that McCabe was untruthful. He may very well have been untruthful,” the California Democrat said, but noted that is not where main his concern lies.
“I have no reason to question the inspector general’s conclusion, but that investigation was put on a fast track. It was separated from a broader inspector general investigation, which is still ongoing,” he said. “Why was that done? It was done so he could be fired to not get a pension. It was done to please the president when the initiation investigation is tainted. So are the results of that investigation.”
McCabe was fired from the FBI on March 16, 2018, less than two days before he planned to retire on his 50th birthday and collect a full pension, after the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General determined he misled investigators about the role he had in leaking information to the Wall Street Journal in October 2016 about the investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
In April 2018, it was revealed that the Justice Department inspector general referred its findings to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for possible criminal charges, and his lawyer confirmed as recently as February that McCabe was still under investigation.
McCabe, whom Trump has accused of planning to carry out an “illegal and treasonous” plan to oust him as president, has argued that his firing was an attempt to discredit the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The initiation of the inspector general’s inquiry in McCabe happened, Schiff said, “because the president wanted it politically.” He added, “Once you go down that road, it leads to disaster.”
Horowitz is nearing the end of another investigation that Trump and his allies are eagerly anticipating. The inspector general announced his investigation into whether the FBI and Justice Department filing of four FISA applications and renewals to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was an abuse of the FISA process in March 2018, following requests by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and members of Congress. House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins said he expects the inspector general’s report to be released this fall after some delays.
This matters because now that Mueller’s work is complete, Barr’s “investigation into the investigators” is underway, and the attorney general has said he is working very closely with Horowitz. The inspector general can recommend prosecutions, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr tasked to lead the review, has the ability to convene a grand jury and subpoena people outside of the government. Beyond that, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, has promised a “deep dive” into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation after Horowitz completes his work.
Wary of the churning cycle of investigations, Schiff tied Horowitz to Barr, saying, “this is tainted from the start because it is motivated for a political end and the damage it will do in terms of a chilling impact is of deep concern, um, the damage it will do in terms of trying to cast doubt on things that are not in doubt.”
The question Schiff was asked by and audience member focused on whether he was concerned about how Durham’s team reportedly wanted to talk to at least one senior CIA counterintelligence official and a senior CIA analyst who examined Russia’s role in meddling in the 2016 election.
He said the inquiries that question “well substantiated conclusions to essentially politicize the intelligence process and tell analysts that the work will be scrutinized with a political perspective if it runs contrary to the desires of the president. That’s a terrible, terrible precedent.”
