Students of the FBI’s 32-month Russia investigation will find nothing in Andrew McCabe’s new memoir about the document that helped fueled it––the Democratic Party-financed anti-Trump dossier.
The fired acting FBI director was at times at the center of the dossier’s information flow into the bureau as his colleague, agent Peter Strzok, opened a probe into the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.
Justice Department senior official Bruce Ohr became the messenger. His wife worked at Fusion GPS, the firm that handled dossier writer Christopher Steele. The former British intelligence officer created the dossier, dishing all sorts of felony allegations against President Trump and his team that remain publicly unproven today.
As deputy director, Mr. McCabe was among the first at the FBI to receive a briefing from Mr. Ohr at FBI headquarters in August 2016 on Mr. Steele’s Trump-Russia collusion charges.
Subsequently, Mr. Ohr keeps Mr. McCabe’s legal counsel, Lisa Page, up to date as well as Mr. Strzok.
Both men were fired from the FBI, Mr. McCabe for lying to FBI agents; Mr. Strzok for disparaging Mr. Trump in a series of text messages with his lover, Ms. Page. Ms. Page resigned.
In Mr. McCabe’s “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” there is no dossier mention. A word search also shows no reference to Mr. Steele or Mr. Ohr.
The FBI used the dossier to obtain at least one wiretap warrant on Trump volunteer Carter Page for a year. It also investigated Mr. Steele’s series of allegations. Mr. Strzok sent agents to London in September 2016 to hear from the ex-Moscow-posted spy in person.
Author McCabe might have stayed mum on the dossier because the entire matter is now under investigation by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz. He is the same investigator who accused Mr. McCabe of lying to agents three times during a probe into how the FBI probed Hillary Clinton’s use of a home computer server while secretary of state.
In his book, Mr. McCabe is generally dismissive of President Trump and his White House staff. He depicts Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, as a conduit for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Nunes headed the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017-18 when he opened a new investigation into how the FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to obtain warrants.
He rankled Mr. McCabe by demanding documents, some of which the bureau refused to turn over. Mr. Nunes proved that the FBI relied greatly on the dossier, a product financed by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, to investigate the other party.
Mr. Nunes released a statement Tuesday:
“Andy McCabe was fired from the FBI for lying and leaking, and many of the stories he’s telling on his book tour are transparently self-serving. Although I cannot comment on the content of Gang of Eight briefings, it’s preposterous to deny that the FBI was investigating Donald Trump from the moment it opened its investigation in mid-2016.”
Mr. McCabe tells an anecdote about the New York Times and then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus that is at odds with Mr. Priebus’ telling.
The focus was on the Times’ February 2017 banner headline story. It said U.S. intelligence owned a significant amount of phone records and intercepted communications between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence for a year before the November election. A sure bombshell––except it wasn’t true.
Here is how Mr. McCabe described his encounter with Mr. Priebus at the White House:
“The week after my commitment was questioned, Reince Priebus asked me to speak with reporters to refute a story in The New York Times. When I told him I could not, because doing so would violate the FBI’s policy of not confirming or denying FISA coverage, he told me that I, personally, and the FBI as a whole, were ’not being good partners.’”
Mr. Priebus tells a far different story as he related to Fox News’ Howard Kurtz.
After the Times’s story ran, Mr. McCabe volunteered to Mr. Priebus that the Times story was wrong.
“We want you to know that everything in this New York Times story is bull——,” Mr. Priebus quoted Mr. McCabe as saying.
Mr. Priebus asked if the FBI would tell the public. Mr. McCabe checked at headquarters and said he could not.
The next thing Mr. Priebus knows is that the FBI is leaking to CNN that the White House pressed the bureau to knock down the story––––a story Mr. McCabe had said was wrong. Mr. Priebus wondered if the whole encounter had been a setup.
Later that year, then-FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the Times story was so wrong he immediately warned congressional leaders not to cite it.
That same committee today hasn’t found direct evidence of Trump-Russia election collusion, Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican and panel chairman, says.
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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