Statement by Andrew McCabe
I have been an FBI Special Agent for over 21 years. I spent half of that time investigating Russian Organized Crime as a street agent and Supervisor in New York City. I have spent the second half of my career focusing on national security issues and protecting this country from terrorism. I served in some of the most challenging, demanding investigative and leadership roles in the FBI. And I was privileged to serve as Deputy Director during a particularly tough time.
For the last year and a half, my family and I have been the targets of an unrelenting assault on our reputation and my service to this country. Articles too numerous to count have leveled every sort of false, defamatory and degrading allegation against us. The President’s tweets have amplified and exacerbated it all. He called for my firing. He called for me to be stripped of my pension after more than 20 years of service. And all along we have said nothing, never wanting to distract from the mission of the FBI by addressing the lies told and repeated about us.
No more.
The investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has to be understood in the context of the attacks on my credibility. The investigation flows from my attempt to explain the FBI’s involvement and my supervision of investigations involving Hillary Clinton. I was being portrayed in the media over and over as a political partisan, accused of closing down investigations under political pressure. The FBI was portrayed as caving under that pressure, and making decisions for political rather than law enforcement purposes. Nothing was further from the truth. In fact, this entire investigation stems from my efforts, fully authorized under FBI rules, to set the record straight on behalf of the Bureau, and to make clear that we were continuing an investigation that people in DOJ opposed.
The OIG investigation has focused on information I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor. As Deputy Director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the Director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter. It was the type of exchange with the media that the Deputy Director oversees several times per week. In fact, it was the same type of work that I continued to do under Director Wray, at his request. The investigation subsequently focused on who I talked to, when I talked to them, and so forth. During these inquiries, I answered questions truthfully and as accurately as I could amidst the chaos that surrounded me. And when I thought my answers were misunderstood, I contacted investigators to correct them.
But looking at that in isolation completely misses the big picture. The big picture is a tale of what can happen when law enforcement is politicized, public servants are attacked, and people who are supposed to cherish and protect our institutions become instruments for damaging those institutions and people.
Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey. The release of this report was accelerated only after my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed that I would corroborate former Director Comey’s accounts of his discussions with the President. The OIG’s focus on me and this report became a part of an unprecedented effort by the Administration, driven by the President himself, to remove me from my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension that I worked 21 years to earn. The accelerated release of the report, and the punitive actions taken in response, make sense only when viewed through this lens. Thursday’s comments from the White House are just the latest example of this.
This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to tain the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally. It is part of this Administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel’s work.
I have always prided myself on serving my country with distinction and integrity, and I always encouraged those around me to do the same. Just ask them. To have my career end in this way, and to be accused of lacking candor when at worst I was distracted in the midst of chaotic events, is incredibly disappointing and unfair. But it will not erase the important work I was privileged to be a part of, the results of which will in the end be revealed for the country to see.
I have unfailing faith in the men and women of the FBI and I am confident that their efforts to seek justice will not be deterred.
Emphasis mine.
I don’t think I’m being sarcastic when I say that if Trump felt he could get away with poisoning and executing his critics; like his Bro. Putin; he would…and Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Hannity would be there to defend it all…
Maybe. But you have to remember this guy has been a billionaire since what, the 1970’s? He’s been “the boss” everywhere he goes.
In business you can’t criticise your boss and expect to keep your job. Try working for Tesla and calling Elon Musk an idiot. He is running government the same way. Except he sucks at building consensus and actually, you know… leading.
Yep…the growing list of “bodies” is starting to pile up…
Just ask Rex Tillerson and close to 30 other people who were once part of this Administration…
Unless I’m missing something, it wasn’t McCabe doing to criticizing. Trump constantly went after him in the press, called his wife, to his face, a “loser” for her failed congressional run, and asked him who he voted for.
If McCabe did something wrong, he should be held accountable for it. But this was politics, plain and simple. Firing a lifelong public servant two days from retirement was a complete dick move and it’s exactly why Trump did it.
Trump is simply gearing up to fire Mueller because the walls are starting to close in.
Edit: To add, this was also very much a warning to intimidate anyone else in the DOJ not willing to toe the line.
I wonder how it compares to the ones he used on Stormy?
(Sorry guys. @Tyler23 threw it out there…I just couldn’t help myself…and I wanted to beat @thehebrewhero to the punch!)
The irony of a party terrified of the potential of an authoritarian govt. Guess as long as nobody touches yer guns, eh @loppar ?
Authoritarian? Why, he’s only:
- Hollowed out the State Dept, his cabinet and other agencies
- Repeatedly attacked our Intelligence Community, Justice Dept, free press and fellow Americans
- Heaped praise upon dictators (Xi, Duterte, etc), while never uttering a single bad word about Vladimir Putin
- Threatened to jail his political opponents
- Enriched his family while in office
Authoritarian? Nah, that’s just Trump being Trump.
Hey man could be worse. If Hillary won we’d have already had all our guns confiscated and had no defense for the nuclear ww3 she would have gotten us into within her first year.
And she would have killed anyone who disagreed with her and simply called it a post birth abortion.
Yes, this is a case of exchanging liberty for playacting with guns. It’s a good thing people have their AR-15s otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to protect their data from being harvested.
Cambridge Analytica, the data firm the Trump campaign used during the 2016 election, obtained the private information of more than 50 million people without their permission,
But hey, AR-15s are more important than potentially colluding with a foreign dictator.
I’ve been wanting to see stories about Cambridge for awhile now. I’m sure Parscale’s involved in this too. Hope the whole lot go down.
There were reportedly three meetings with Lukoil executives in London and Turkey and Lukoil was interested in how data was used to target American voters.
My favorite part from the article:
“We’re sending them stuff about political targeting — they then come and ask more about political targeting,” Mr. Wylie said, adding that Lukoil “just didn’t seem to be interested” in how the techniques could be used commercially.
While Lukoil is nominally in private hands, it is basically an extension of the Russian government with many speculating that Putin himself is the actual owner.
Lukoil managers regularly speak (and threaten) on behalf of the Russian government in public appearances.
That’s pretty much public knowledge so anyone pleading ignorance is simply lying…
@loppar and others:
First…Trump’s Bro. coming out of a Polling Booth in Moscow.
I heard it was a pretty tight election…could come down to the Dead Oligarch Vote? Thoughts?
In all seriousness. I just saw a piece on these Oligarch’s on the out’s with Putin dying like Flies in the UK (and Russia).
Seems like the British Police have FINALLY stopped all the “mysterious deaths/suicide/heart attack” bullshit, and turned it over to British Counter-Terrorism with the help of those corrupt, inept, Hillary-Loving losers in U.S. Intelligence.
Thoughts @loppar and others?
Well, these “elections” were pretty surreal even for Russian fake election standards. Putin didn’t even bother campaigning and the Kremlin fielded seven fake candidates as challengers to Vladimir himself. And those were pretty bizarre - a millionaire entrepreneur running as the Communist Party (!) candidate, a race baiting antisemite Zhirinovsky and the daughter of Putin’s mentor as his supposedly harshest critic. So when a fake candidate in a fake election exclaims “these elections are fake” you know these are some Inception-level mind bending games.
Russians run a pretty smooth operation - they saw that people like 24h news channels and the concept of politics as entertainment so there were fake lively debates, incidents and fake round-the-clock election coverage, despite everyone constantly using the phrase “when the President gets reelected”.
The banner says “get out and vote!” while the text underneath states “we’ve elected the President of the USA, we’ll elect the President of Russia as well”
I’m afraid that’s bullshit. Putin staged a reckless murder attempt in the archetypal English countryside town and the Brits did basically nothing - no crackdown on the oligarch’s dirty money, no Magnitsky Act sanctions, only some empty threats.
The audience back home in Russian loves this impunity.
Thanks to Brexit and Trump, Britain is now pathetically alone and it shows.
Does Britain get natural gas from Russia? I know that’s the one thing the ruskies like to hold over the EU.
What leverage does Russia have on GB? May should have expelled all Russian diplomats after they set off a nerve agent in the country.
Somewhere around 40% IIRC
Britain, open for business, no longer has a “mission.” Any moralizing remnant of the British Empire is gone; it has turned back to the pirate England of Sir Walter Raleigh. Britain’s ruling class has decayed to the point where its first priority is protecting its cut of Russian money — even as Russian armored personnel carriers rumble around the streets of Sevastopol. But the establishment understands that, in the 21st century, what matters are banks, not tanks.
The Russians also understand this. They know that London is a center of Russian corruption, that their loot plunges into Britain’s empire of tax havens — from Gibraltar to Jersey, from the Cayman Islands to the British Virgin Islands — on which the sun never sets.
British residency is up for sale. “Investor visas” can be purchased, starting at £1 million ($1.6 million). London lawyers in the Commercial Court now get 60 percent of their work from Russian and Eastern European clients. More than 50 Russia-based companies swell the trade at London’s Stock Exchange. The planning regulations have been scrapped, and along the Thames, up go spires of steel and glass for the hedge-funding class.
Britain’s bright young things now become consultants, art dealers, private banker and hedge funders. Or, to put it another way, the oligarchs’ valets.
Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, gets it: you pay them, you own them. Mr. Putin was absolutely certain that Britain’s managers — shuttling through the revolving door between cabinet posts and financial boards — would never give up their fees and commissions from the oligarchs’ billions. He was right.
Awesome. So what’s Russia’s long game in all this? Just troll the West constantly and keep enriching the oligarchs? Putin will die eventually, then what?
They only have what, 65 million people. They produce oil/nat gas/coal/some industrial goods… But not much else. They aren’t going to become an economic powerhouse like China and really upend the world balance of power. It’s just one giant, empty troll state.