Out of all the top Justice Department and FBI officials under scrutiny, Rep. Jim Jordan says former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is most likely to have broken the law.
Fox News host Sean Hannity asked him during an interview if he thinks Barr will indict anybody in his investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.
Jordan, R-Ohio, said two things will have to play out: Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Attorney General William Barr predicted will end in May or June, and Barr’s investigation of the FBI’s initial investigation into the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.
Pressed on if he believes Barr will determine that anyone broke the law, Jordan replied in the affirmative.
“I particularly think so with Andy McCabe. I think he’s in trouble,” Jordan said. He also said former FBI agent Peter Strzok “potentially” will also be in trouble with the law, but Horowitz’s and Barr’s respective investigations will have to play out first.
McCabe was fired from the FBI on March 16, 2018, 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 had referred its findings to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for possible criminal charges, and his lawyer confirmed in February that McCabe was still under investigation.
During a recent book tour, McCabe become the person on record to corroborate reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told DOJ officials about wearing a “wire” to record conversations with President Trump and that he was recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office in the days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. McCabe also said he ordered an obstruction of justice investigation into Trump after he fired Comey in the spring of 2017.
Strzok was a top FBI official who led the Hillary Clinton emails investigation as well as the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He was pushed out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russi investigation and later fired after it was discovered he exchanged anti-Trump text messages with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.
Bolstering Barr’s investigative efforts will be the criminal referrals Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., plans to send to the Justice Department this week, likely targeting eight Justice Department and FBI officials at the heart of the Trump-Russia investigation. Barr testified to a House panel on Tuesday that when he sees the referrals, “obviously, if there is a predicate for investigation, it will be conducted.”
Hannity predicted the referrals will be submitted Thursday.
