ABC News Just Reported That Andrew McCabe Had Authorized a Criminal Probe of Jeff Sessions

Sessions fired McCabe last week.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at a press conference regarding new opioid drug policy last month in Washington. Shen Ting/Xinhua via ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe last week, supposedly for displaying a lack of candor in dealing with an internal Justice Department probe. But On Wednesday, ABC News reported that a year before McCabe’s firing, he had authorized the launch of a criminal inquiry into whether Sessions himself lacked candor when he testified before Congress during his confirmation hearing.

The investigation reportedly stemmed from Sessions’ testimony that he had not met with Russian officials. The Washington Post revealed last March that he had indeed met with the Russian ambassador in 2016. Sessions recused himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after the Post report came out, a decision that ultimately helped lead to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel. 

According to ABC‘s report:

According to the sources, McCabe authorized the criminal inquiry after a top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and then-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wrote a letter in March 2017 to the FBI urging agents to investigate “all contacts” Sessions may have had with Russians, and “whether any laws were broken in the course of those contacts or in any subsequent discussion of whether they occurred.”

It’s unclear how actively federal authorities pursued the matter in the months before Sessions’ interview with Mueller’s investigators. It’s also unclear whether the special counsel may still be pursuing other matters related to Sessions and statements he has made to Congress—or others—since his confirmation.

It’s not clear whether Sessions was aware of the reported FBI inquiry into his testimony when he fired McCabe last week, hours before McCabe would have retired from the FBI with full benefits. An attorney for Sessions, Chuck Cooper, told ABC that the investigation into the attorney general is over. “The Special Counsel’s office has informed me that after interviewing the attorney general and conducting additional investigation, the attorney general is not under investigation for false statements or perjury in his confirmation hearing testimony and related written submissions to Congress,” he said. Sessions has repeatedly denied misleading senators during his confirmation hearing.

Even before ABC’s report, there were serious questions about whether Sessions should have avoided involvement in the decision to fire McCabe. The former FBI official played significant roles in both the Russia probe and investigations into Hillary Clinton—matters that Sessions had promised to recuse himself from. Moreover, President Donald Trump had spent months publicly pressuring Sessions to remove McCabe.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate