Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired for lying by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, admitted he misled investigators regarding his role in a media leak and apologized for it, according to transcripts of his interviews with those investigators released on Thursday.
The Justice Department inspector general’s office released the transcripts in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or Crew, the Washington Times reported.
According to the transcripts, an FBI investigator who was not identified provided details about his frustration with McCabe regarding the amount of time he spent investigating the leak, only to find out that it actually came from the deputy director.
McCabe had repeatedly denied that he was the source of the leak. However, he later confessed to it, the apologized when the FBI investigator asked him about it, according to the transcripts.
“I remember saying to him, ‘Sir, you understand that we’ve put a lot of work into this based on what you told us,’” the agent said. “I mean, and I even said, long nights and weekends working on this trying to find out who amongst your ranks of trusted people would, would do something like that. And [McCabe] kind of just looked down, kind of nodded and said, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry.'”
Last year, DoJ IG Michael Horowitz said McCabe “lacked candor” with investigators probing a leak to The Wall Street Journal revealing the FBI was examining Hilary Clinton’s emails and the Clinton Foundation.
The department would not charge Clinton with destroying more than 30,000 emails that had been subpoenaed by Congress, nor for mishandling classified information, both felonies.
Clinton was honing in on the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination at the time she was exonerated in a bizarre press conference in July 2016 by then-FBI Director James Comey.
McCabe was fired in the spring of 2018 citing Horowitz’s conclusions.