A conservative nonprofit government watchdog wants the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) to investigate FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s involvement in federal probes of Hillary Clinton and one of her top supporters, Virginia Gov. Terry McAullife.
The Democratic governor’s political action committee donated $675,000 to McCabe’s failed state senatorial campaign.
“Governor McAuliffe directed significant campaign contributions to an FBI official’s wife during active FBI investigations into both Governor McAuliffe and former Secretary of State Clinton,” Cause of Action (CoA) Institute Vice President John J. Vecchione said.
McCabe was a key manager of the FBI leadership team overseeing the probe of Clinton’s use of a “home-brew” private email system and server based in her New York home to conduct the official diplomatic business of the U.S. He was thus in a position to influence the FBI’s probe into whether McAuliffe’s campaign accepted illegal campaign donations.
“Just a few months after those contributions were made, the FBI official apparently played a role in the decision not to recommend prosecution of Secretary Clinton, and he may be in a similar influential position with respect to the ongoing McAuliffe investigation,” Vecchione said.
CoA Institute also filed a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request for communications about McCabe’s role in the investigations and the role McAuliffe’s political donations may have played in those probes.
“Regardless of whether any illegal or unethical conduct occurred, the campaign contributions at the very least raise serious questions about conflicts of interest and the propriety of Deputy Director McCabe’s involvement in and influence on those investigations,” Vecchione said.
“The timing of the campaign contributions to Deputy Director McCabe’s wife from Governor McAuliffe’s political action committee and the Virginia Democratic Party raises serious conflicts of interest concerns,” the letter to the IG said.
Dr. Jill McCabe’s campaign received the bulk of McAuliffe’s PAC’s donations in October 2015 when her husband ran the FBI’s Washington, D.C., field office, which is investigating whether McAuliffe received illegal campaign contributions.
That field office also provided personnel and resources to the Clinton email investigation, which began in July 2015. McCabe was promoted to deputy director in February 2016 and became part of the executive leadership team that oversaw that investigation.
McCabe “was directly involved in the Secretary Clinton email investigation, which overlapped with the time his wife received the campaign contributions,” the CofA letter continued. “As the second-in-command at the FBI, Deputy Director McCabe was also in position to influence the ongoing investigation of Governor McAuliffe.”
More than one-third of Dr. McCabe’s campaign funds came from McAuliffe’s PAC – called Common Good VA – and the Virginia Democratic Party. She was the PAC’s third-largest recipient.
“This has all the trappings of a classic quid pro quo, where one individual grants a favor now in return for a favor to be granted at a later date,” the letter to the IG said.
McCabe was recruited by McAuliffe and other Virginia democrats, but lost to Republican state senate incumbent Dick Black.
A McAuliffe spokesman denied that the governor’s support for McCabe was tied to FBI investigations.
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