Grassley Highlights Specious Reports Smearing Integrity Of Acting FBI Chief

The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday highlighted a pair of dubiously-sourced conservative media reports to suggest that Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe may need to recuse himself from the federal investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) expressed concern about McCabe’s “apparent conflict in ongoing FBI investigations.” He requested an unredacted copy of an FBI memo from December, which he said the agency had provided in response to one of his previous inquiries, saying that McCabe’s “disassociation would be appropriate” in some matters handled by the bureau.

Grassley’s letter cites two articles from Circa, a site owned by conservative media group Sinclair, to claim that McCabe is “the subject of three separate pending investigations.” Only one of those purported investigations has been confirmed, a probe by the FBI’s Office of the Inspector General that relates to McCabe’s decision not to recuse himself from the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server although a political action committee affiliated with Virginia’s governor, an ally of the Clintons, donated some $500,000 to McCabe’s wife’s unsuccessful campaign for Virginia state Senate.

The reports cited in Grassley’s memo come from Sara A. Carter and John Solomon, a former Associated Press and Washington Examiner journalist who now serves as the chief operating officer of Circa. Their reporting has not been corroborated by other outlets, although other right-wing sites have been picking up the Circa articles.

Grassley cites one Circa report to claims that McCabe also is under investigation for potentially violating the Hatch Act by engaging in political campaign activities on behalf of his wife. The third purported investigation the Senate Judiciary chair mentions, again citing Circa, is a pending complaint against McCabe filed by a female former FBI agent who believes she was dismissed from the bureau for complaining about gender discrimination.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request about whether there is a Equal Employment Opportunity complaint pending against McCabe. Asked about an alleged Hatch Act violation investigation into McCabe, Karen Gorman of the Office of Special Counsel said in an emailed statement: “As a general practice, we do not comment or confirm if we have an active or closed case.”

The most inflammatory claim put forth by the Circa reports is that McCabe launched the bureau’s investigation into ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn in retaliation for Flynn’s support of the female agent who reportedly filed the complaint against McCabe. That report is based on interviews with three anonymous FBI employees as well as “documents” relating to the female agent’s firing. The investigation into Flynn originated in the Justice Department, however, and McCabe was not leading the FBI yet when the bureau assumed control of the probe.

The Circa article simply notes that McCabe was “in a position to impact the criminal inquiry against Flynn,” and that the three 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.”

Grassley seemed to take the report at face value, writing that it “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.”