Updated at 6:49 p.m.
The legal representation for former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe is sharing a “facts matter” rebuttal to some of the “most egregious inaccuracies” in the Justice Department inspector general’s report released Friday that formed the basis of Attorney General Jeff Sessions firing him last month.
The report found McCabe “lacked candor” on four separate occasions, including three times while under oath, in connection with the Wall Street Journal leak.
Melissa Schwartz, the spokeswoman for McCabe, noted the release of the report was “fascinating” and shared on Twitter a two-page “fact” sheet pushing back on some of the IG report’s findings.
4 weeks to the day after his termination, the Office of the Inspector General report that was the basis for the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew #McCabe is finally public. The most egregious inaccuracies in the report are available at: https://t.co/DstobNbfMd
— Melissa Schwartz (@MSchwartz3) April 13, 2018
“4 weeks to the day after his termination, the Office of the Inspector General report that was the basis for the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew #McCabe is finally public,” she said, while sharing on Twitter a two-page “fact” sheet pushing back on some of the IG report’s findings, or as Schwartz called them, “egregious inaccuracies.”
“Andrew McCabe’s interaction with the WSJ – which by FBI rule and practice he was fully authorized to do – was not done in secret: it took place over the course of several days and others knew of it, including Director Comey,” she said in a separate tweet.
Facts Matter by Danny Chaitin on Scribd
The genesis of the report swirls around the leak of sensitive information to the Wall Street Journal that pushed back against an October 2016 report about large donations McCabe’s wife received from Democrats during her bid for the Virginia State Senate.
The IG finally determined that as deputy director, McCabe was authorized to make the disclosures if they fell within the “public interest exception, since the Justice Department and FBI prohibit “such a disclosure of an ongoing investigation.”
“However, we concluded that McCabe’s decision to confirm the existence of the [Clinton Foundation] Investigation through an anonymously sourced quote, recounting the content of a phone call with a senior Department official in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership, was clearly not within the public interest exception. We therefore concluded that McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in this manner violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct,” the IG report said.
Schwartz works for the Bromwich Group, whose founder and managing principal is Michael Bromwich, a former DOJ IG in the 1990s.
He released a lengthy statement Friday condemning a “rush to judgment” that led to McCabe’s firing 26 hours before he was set to retire with a full pension.
“In the full context of this case, the termination of Mr. McCabe was completely unjustified. And the rush to fire him, at the goading of the President, was unworthy of the great traditions of the Department of Justice,” Bromwich said.
Bromwich also indicated legal action could be imminent.
“We have for some time been actively considering filing civil lawsuits against the President and senior members of the Administration that would allege wrongful termination, defamation, Constitutional violations and more. The distinguished Boies Schiller law firm has recently joined us in this project. This is just the beginning,” Bromwich wrote in a statement.
After he was fired, a legal defense fund was set up for McCabe. Earlier this month the GoFundMe campaign was taken down after it raised more than $530,000, far exceeding its original and updated goals.
