Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley this week asked the Justice Department to answer questions about allegations of political conflicts against Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein sent Wednesday and made public on Thursday, Grassley noted that McCabe is now “the subject of three separate pending investigations.”
Grassley said he had already asked Rosenstein last month for answers about “McCabe’s apparent conflicts in ongoing FBI investigations due to, among other things, his relationship with [Democratic Virginia] Gov. Terry McAuliffe,” and pushed for answers on what the FBI has done to “address the appearance of political bias.”
But Grassley also mentioned a discrimination case from 2014 in which former Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn wrote a complaint against McCabe, who had been accused by a female employee of gender discrimination. Despite the complaint against by McCabe, he still worked on the FBI’s investigation into Flynn’s communications with Russian officials.
“A recent press report states that three FBI employees, ‘personally witnessed McCabe make disparaging remarks about Flynn before and during the time the retired Army general emerged as a figure in the Russia case.’ That evidence and the failure to recuse calls into question whether Mr. McCabe handled the Flynn investigation fairly and objectively, or whether he had any retaliatory motive against Flynn for being an adverse witness to him in a pending proceeding,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley also noted that McCabe “was the approval authority for his own recusal memo” that was applied by the FBI in 2016 “regarding his potential conflicts of interest in ongoing and future FBI investigations.”
Grassley demanded that recusal memo, without redactions, no later than next month.
“In addition, please provide a written explanation of the steps you intend to take as Mr. McCabe’s supervisor to address the appearance of political and other conflicts of interest outlined above,” Grassley wrote.
McCabe is under three investigations as he sits as acting FBI director. In addition to the gender discrimination case, the Justice Department’s inspector general examining his political relationship with McAuliffe, and the Office of Special Counsel is investigating allegations that he violated the Hatch Act by engaging in political campaign activities.
