Massachusetts’s Seth Moulton Open To Offering FBI’s Recently-Fired McCabe Job To Save Pension

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2018/03/18/massachusettss-seth-moulton-open-to-offering-fbis-recently-fired-mccabe-job-to-save-pension/

Massachusetts U.S. Representative Seth Moulton is not ruling out the possibility of offering ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a nemesis of President Donald Trump’s, a job in his Congressional office as a way to ensure McCabe is able to retire from public service with his federal pension and other benefits mostly intact.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe on Friday, about a day before he planned to retire with full pension and benefits.

McCabe in January stepped down from his FBI post and went on paid leave, while his firing was reportedly recommended by the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility after an internal review determined that he had been less-than-truthful regarding his decision to give FBI officials the green light to talk to the media about the bureau’s 2016 investigation into the Clinton Foundation. The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is expected to release a comprehensive report outlining how federal investigators handled the Hillary Clinton email probe — a potentially damaging document for McCabe and his former boss, ex-FBI Director James Comey, whose tell-all book is slated for a mid-April release, roughly the same time Horowitz’s report is expected to land.

After Trump fired Comey on May 9 of last year, McCabe took over as acting director of the F.B.I., but when Christopher Wray got the top job in August 2017 McCabe went back to being deputy director. He gave up the deputy director position January 29, reportedly after Comey’s successor, Wray, provided him with a preview of what Horowitz’s report will contain.

Horowitz was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

McCabe is now publicly claiming that his firing represents the latest episode of Trump’s “war on the FBI,” while left-leaning news outlets like the New Yorker have described the saga as “Donald Trump and the Craven Firing of Andrew McCabe.” 

McCabe was expected to submit his official retirement papers on Sunday, on his 50th birthday, a date when his full benefits would have kicked in.

The idea of hiring McCabe to work as a Congressional staffer was first raised by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, with Moulton quickly chiming in and saying he’d be open to hiring McCabe himself:

Moulton, however, would likely enjoy only a few days of McCabe’s “wisdom and talent,” as the arrangement would only require McCabe to work a day or two in order to get his full benefits.

Another Democrat, however, has apparently topped Moulton’s potential offer. U.S. Representative Mark Pocan, a Wisconsite who has served in Congress since 2013, issued a press release following McCabe’s firing in which he offered him a job.

“Andrew McCabe’s firing makes it clear that President Trump is doing everything he can to discredit the FBI and undermine the Special Counsel’s investigation,” said Rep. Pocan. “While Speaker Ryan and House Republicans have become complicit in the President’s destruction of our democracy, we must do all that we can to ensure that the investigation into Russia’s interference in our election is completed and that future elections are safeguarded from these kinds of attacks.”

“My offer of employment to Mr. McCabe is a legitimate offer to work on election security. Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of American democracy and both Republicans and Democrats should be concerned about election integrity. … From Governor Walker’s outrageous voter ID laws that kept an estimated 17,000 registered Wisconsin voters from the polls in 2016, to Republicans in Pennsylvania gerrymandering a map to rig elections in their favor, our electoral systems are under attack. We must take serious steps to not only secure our elections from foreign actors like Russia, but also ensure that the American people have faith that their votes matter.”

“Finally, I’d like to thank Mr. McCabe for his years of service to the FBI and our country. He deserves the full retirement that he has been promised, not to have it taken away as a result of the President’s political games …”

 

McCabe, meanwhile, is now claiming he created a series of memos documenting his meetings with Trump. 

Trump on Sunday continued his social media barrage against McCabe: