Sometimes things in Washington, D.C. are entirely too predictable.
As Guy wrote, fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe raked in more than $500,000 from leftist sympathizers this week after setting up a legal fund and blasting President Trump. As a reminder, McCabe was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and the DOJ Inspector General recommended he be terminated for a lack of candor.
But it turns out, McCabe's pay day wasn't a result of a grassroots effort to defend him against false attacks. The GoFundMe page was set up by a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm connected to President Barack Obama. From Law & Crime (bolding is mine):
Melissa Schwartz is a crisis and communications consultant who currently works for The Bromwich Group.
She’s also McCabe’s present spokesperson.
The Bromwich Group is a K Street consulting and PR firm headed by Michael R. Bromwich. Immediately prior to founding the firm, Bromwich served as the first director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under President Barack Obama.
On March 29, Schwartz sanctioned the official GoFundMe campaign by tweeting, “Correct. We launched the official campaign today.” Later that same day, in response to suspicion about the veracity of the fundraiser, she tweeted, “That is the official campaign we launched today.” (Notably, Schwartz is also the person who issued the Monday statement announcing the legal defense fund would stop accepting donations–after repeatedly shifting its initial $150,000 goal upwards.)
On Monday, the Bromwich Group ended McCabe's legal defense fundraising after it well surpassed the original goal of $150,000.
Over the weekend McCabe's wife, Jill McCabe, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post claiming her husband never used official resources to support her campaign for the Virginia Senate. McCabe in fact did use his official FBI email to ask fellow agents for support.
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In fact, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley asked the Department of Justice for more information about McCabe's involvement in Jill McCabe's campaign.
"E-mail communications recently released by the FBI in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may have violated the Hatch Act and corresponding Department regulations prohibiting political activity during his wife’s 2015 campaign for the Virginia Senate," a December 2017 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein says. "According to guidance from the DOJ’s Departmental Ethics Office, under 5 C.F.R. § 734.101-702, FBI employees are forbidden from “engag[ing] in political activity while on duty, in a federal facility, wearing a uniform or official insignia, or using a federally-owned or leased vehicle."
Swamp, indeed.
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