Report: FBI refusing to produce McCabe communications despite COURT order
(National Sentinel) Contempt: The FBI has so far refused to turn over communications involving the bureau’s outgoing deputy director, Andrew McCabe, despite being ordered to do so by a federal court, investigative journalist Sara A. Carter reports.
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She noted on her website:
For more than two months, the FBI has failed to abide by a judge’s order to turn over all of … McCabe’s text messages, emails and SMS phone messages to a government watchdog group that has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a former senior FBI special agent
The communications in question are related to McCabe’s wife’s unsuccessful run for Virginia State senate and might also contain invaluable information on McCabe’s role in the Bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server used to send classified information, several former FBI sources and a government official told this reporter.
In January, Judicial Watch, a formidable conservative watchdog group based in Washington D.C., filed a lawsuit against the FBI for the communications on behalf of retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Danik. Danik spent more than 28 years with the bureau as a supervisor in the counter-terrorism division and special overseas advisor.
Danik filed his original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for McCabe’s communication a month before the November 2016 elections. Afterward, the FBI responded on Nov. 8 and 9, 2016, denying his request, Carter noted.
The former supervisory agent appealed the refusal to the Justice Department, she noted. In June 2017, the DoJ instructed the FBI to search for and hand over any relevant documents. However, the bureau continued to stonewall the request and in January Danik filed a joint lawsuit with Judicial Watch for the information.
“They have not produced not one text of McCabe, not one,” said Danik, referencing the bureau, Carter reported.
“The government is out of control and it’s astonishing. Do you know what would happen if the government subpoenaed you for information and you didn’t produce records that you had in your possession? You’d go to jail for contempt,” he added, according to Carter.
She noted further that DoJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who is investigating the bureau’s and the Justice Department’s Hillary Clinton email probe, is expected to release his report by the end of this month or early April.
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His report could reignite the Clinton case and lead to further revelations regarding the scandalous nature in which the probe was allegedly conducted.
Carter reported that several government sources and a former senior law enforcement source said they expect Horowitz to criticize McCabe for giving the go-ahead for a leak to The Wall Street Journal in October 2016 but also because he may have intervened to shut down part of the Clinton email probe.
“McCabe had the authority to shut down investigations but if it’s discovered that he stopped an investigation for political reasons based on his own bias that will be a significant problem for him,” a former senior government official, with knowledge of the investigation, told the reporter.
“The FBI has been playing games with text messages for some time,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, according to Carter. “The arrogance in refusing to provide any text messages of Mr. McCabe shows a contempt for transparency and the rule of law.”
Danik said the bureau’s refusal to turn over the court-ordered information is likely because of what they will reveal.
“If I was allowed to conduct the investigation into who knew what, when regarding the Hillary Clinton email server, I could put that timeline together very quickly,” Danik told Carter in an earlier interview.
“There’s a huge electronic footprint now…in the FBI between text and email and instant messaging. The way that the documents are prepared in the official system. This is a large footprint that is left on an investigation and it can be quickly retrieved,” he continued.
“You can tell very quickly the efficiency, the speed at which investigation was taken or not undertaken. I don’t know if they don’t want those records out because it pulls back the curtain and lets you see the framework of these investigations or maybe they are afraid of what it actually says and who it reflects on.”
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