Oversight & Review Division February 2018 

Office of the Inspector General 

U.S. Department of Justice 

OVERSIGHT INTEGRITY GUIDANCE

A Report of Investigation of Certain 

Allegations Relating to Former FBI 

Deputy Director Andrew McCabe 
i 

Table of Contents

I. Introduction and Summary of Findings.................................................... 1

II. Relevant Statutes, Policies, and Practices ................................................ 3

A. Lack of Candor ........................................................................... 3

B. FBI Policies and Practices Regarding Media Contacts and Leaks ......... 3

III. Factual Findings .................................................................................. 4

A. Background Facts ....................................................................... 4

1. Andrew McCabe................................................................. 4

2. The Clinton E-mail Investigation .......................................... 4

3. The Clinton Foundation Investigation .................................... 5

B. Events Leading to the October 30 Article and its Aftermath............... 5

1. Comey Refuses To Confirm the Existence of the 

CF Investigation (July 7) or Other Investigations 

(September 28)................................................................. 5

2. McCabe–PADAG Call on the CF Investigation (August 12) ........ 5

3. The October 23 WSJ Article and Aftermath ............................ 5

4. The Attorney General Expresses Strong Concerns to McCabe 

and other FBI Officials about Leaks, and McCabe Discusses 

Recusing Himself from CF Investigation (October 26).............. 6

5. McCabe Is Excluded from a Meeting Regarding Clinton E-mails 

Found on the Weiner Laptop (October 27) ............................. 7

6. McCabe Authorizes Special Counsel and AD/OPA To Talk to 

Barrett Regarding CF Investigation and To Disclose August 12 

McCabe-PADAG Call ........................................................... 8

7. The October 30 WSJ Article ................................................. 9

8. McCabe Admonishes Two FBI Executives for Leaks in the 

October 30 WSJ Article Regarding the CF Investigation ......... 11

9. Comey Expresses Concern About Leaks at his Staff Meeting 

and Discusses the October 30 WSJ Article with McCabe 

(October 31) ................................................................... 11

10. Knowledge of Other FBI Executives .................................... 13

11. McCabe Admonishes NY-ADIC for CF Investigation Leaks 

Following November 3 WSJ Article (November 4) ................. 14

12. INSD Opens an Investigation of the WSJ Leak (May 2017)..... 14

13. INSD Interviews McCabe under Oath on May 9..................... 15

14. McCabe’s Initial Account under Oath to the OIG on 

July 28, 2017 .................................................................. 18

15. McCabe Calls the OIG on August 1 To Correct his Testimony .. 19

16. INSD and the OIG Interview Special Counsel under Oath 

Regarding the October 30 Article (August 7, September 7, 

October 26) .................................................................... 20
ii

17. INSD Interviews McCabe Again (August 18)......................... 20

18. The OIG Assumes Responsibility for the Investigation 

(August 31) .................................................................... 21

19. The OIG Interviews McCabe under Oath on November 29 ...... 21

IV. OIG Analysis ..................................................................................... 22

A. Lack of Candor ......................................................................... 22

1. Lack of Candor with Then-Director Comey on or around 

October 31, 2016............................................................. 22

2. Lack of Candor in Interview under Oath with INSD Agents 

on May 9, 2017 ............................................................... 27

3. Lack of Candor in Interview under Oath with 

OIG Investigators on July 28, 2017 .................................... 29

4. Lack of Candor in Interview under Oath with 

OIG Investigators on November 29, 2017 ........................... 31

B. Media Policies........................................................................... 32

C. Conclusion............................................................................... 35
1 

I. Introduction and Summary of Findings

This misconduct report addresses the accuracy of statements made by thenFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to the FBI’s 

Inspection Division (INSD) and the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ) 

Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concerning the disclosure of certain law 

enforcement sensitive information to reporter Devlin Barrett that was published 

online in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on October 30, 2016, in an article entitled 

“FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe.” A print version of the article was 

published in the WSJ on Monday, October 31, 2016, in an article entitled “FBI, 

Justice Feud in Clinton Probe.”

This investigation was initially opened by INSD to determine whether the 

information published by the WSJ in the October 30 article was an unauthorized 

leak and, if so, who was the source of the leak. On August 31, 2017, the OIG 

opened an investigation of McCabe following INSD’s referral of its matter to the OIG 

after INSD became concerned that McCabe may have lacked candor when 

questioned by INSD agents about his role in the disclosure to the WSJ. Shortly 

before that INSD referral, as part of its ongoing Review of Allegations Regarding 

Various Actions by the Department and the FBI in Advance of the 2016 Election, the 

OIG identified FBI text messages by McCabe’s then-Special Counsel (“Special 

Counsel”) that reflected that she and the then-Assistant Director for Public Affairs 

(“AD/OPA”) had been in contact with Barrett on October 27 and 28, 2016, and the 

OIG began to review the involvement of McCabe, Special Counsel, and AD/OPA in 

the disclosure of information to the WSJ in connection with the October 30 article.

In addition to addressing whether McCabe lacked candor, the OIG’s 

misconduct investigation addressed whether any FBI or Department of Justice 

policies were violated in disclosing non-public FBI information to the WSJ.

The OIG’s misconduct investigation included reviewing all of the INSD 

investigative materials as well as numerous additional documents, e-mails, text 

messages, and OIG interview transcripts. The OIG interviewed numerous 

witnesses, including McCabe, Special Counsel, former FBI Director James Comey, 

and others.

As detailed below, we found that in late October 2016, McCabe authorized 

Special Counsel and AD/OPA to discuss with Barrett issues related to the FBI’s 

Clinton Foundation investigation (CF Investigation). In particular, McCabe 

authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to disclose to Barrett the contents of a 

telephone call that had occurred on August 12, 2016, between McCabe and the 

then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General (“PADAG”). Among the purposes 

of the disclosure was to rebut a narrative that had been developing following a 

story in the WSJ on October 23, 2016, that questioned McCabe’s impartiality in 

overseeing FBI investigations involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 

and claimed that McCabe had ordered the termination of the CF Investigation due 

to Department of Justice pressure. The disclosure to the WSJ effectively confirmed 

the existence of the CF Investigation, which then-FBI Director Comey had 
2 

previously refused to do. The account of the August 12 McCabe-PADAG call, and 

other information regarding the handling of the CF Investigation, was included in 

the October 30 WSJ article. 

We found that, in a conversation with then-Director Comey shortly after the 

WSJ article was published, McCabe lacked candor when he told Comey, or made 

statements that led Comey to believe, that McCabe had not authorized the 

disclosure and did not know who did. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.5 

(Lack of Candor – No Oath).

We also found that on May 9, 2017, when questioned under oath by FBI 

agents from INSD, McCabe lacked candor when he told the agents that he had not 

authorized the disclosure to the WSJ and did not know who did. This conduct 

violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath). 

We further found that on July 28, 2017, when questioned under oath by the 

OIG in a recorded interview, McCabe lacked candor when he stated: (a) that he 

was not aware of Special Counsel having been authorized to speak to reporters 

around October 30 and (b) that, because he was not in Washington, D.C., on 

October 27 and 28, 2016, he was unable to say where Special Counsel was or what 

she was doing at that time. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of 

Candor – Under Oath). 

We additionally found that on November 29, 2017, when questioned under 

oath by the OIG in a recorded interview during which he contradicted his prior 

statements by acknowledging that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ, 

McCabe lacked candor when he: (a) stated that he told Comey on October 31, 

2016, that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ; (b) denied telling INSD 

agents on May 9 that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ about the 

PADAG call; and (c) asserted that INSD’s questioning of him on May 9 about the 

October 30 WSJ article occurred at the end of an unrelated meeting when one of 

the INSD agents pulled him aside and asked him one or two questions about the 

article. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).

Lastly, we determined that as Deputy Director, McCabe was authorized to 

disclose the existence of the CF Investigation publicly if such a disclosure fell within 

the “public interest” exception in applicable FBI and DOJ policies generally 

prohibiting such a disclosure of an ongoing investigation. However, we concluded 

that McCabe’s decision to confirm the existence of the CF Investigation through an 

anonymously sourced quote, recounting the content of a phone call with a senior 

Department official in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the 

expense of Department leadership, was clearly not within the public interest 

exception. We therefore concluded that McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an 

ongoing investigation in this manner violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media 

policy and constituted misconduct.

The OIG is issuing this report to the FBI for such action as it deems 

appropriate. 
3 

II. Relevant Statutes, Policies, and Practices

A. Lack of Candor

The Offense Codes Applicable to the FBI’s Internal Disciplinary Process 

punish FBI employees for “lack of candor.” Offense Code 2.5 (Lack of Candor – No 

Oath) prohibits “[k]nowingly providing false information when making a verbal or 

written statement, not under oath, to a supervisor, another Bureau employee in an 

authoritative position, or another governmental agency, when the employee is 

questioned about his conduct or the conduct of another person.” Offense Code 2.6 

(Lack of Candor – Under Oath) prohibits “[k]nowingly providing false information in 

a verbal or written statement made under oath.” Under both offense codes, lack of 

candor is defined to include “false statements, misrepresentations, the failure to be 

fully forthright, or the concealment or omission of a material fact/information.”

B. FBI Policies and Practices Regarding Media Contacts and Leaks

The then-existing FBI Policy on Media Relations, Section 3.1, authorized the 

FBI Director, the FBI Deputy Director, the Associate Deputy Director, and the 

Assistant Director for the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) to speak with the media on 

behalf of the FBI. Other FBI executives could only speak with the media “at OPA’s 

request or following coordination with, and approval by, OPA at FBIHQ.” Section 

3.4 of this policy provided, in relevant part, that disclosures to the media “must not 

address an ongoing investigation” except as indicated in that section. The section 

provides two examples of when it “may be permissible to selectively release [nonclassified] information to assure the public that an investigation is in progress” with 

prior approval of specific components at FBI headquarters: 

(1) to protect the public interest, welfare or safety

(2) to solicit information from the public that might be relevant to an 

investigation. 

Section 3.3 of the policy also provides that all releases must be consistent 

with all applicable laws and regulations and policy as itemized in Section 5, which

includes the United States Attorneys’ Manual (USAM), Title 1-7.000, “Media 

Relations.” Title 1-7.000 of the USAM establishes specific guidelines for the release 

of information relating to criminal and civil cases by the FBI and other DOJ 

components. The USAM guidelines expressly state that they are consistent with 28 

C.F.R. § 50.2, which provides that “where background information or information 

relating to the circumstances of an arrest or investigation would be highly 

prejudicial or where the release thereof would serve no law enforcement function, 

such information should not be made public.” 28 C.F.R. § 50.2(a)(3)(iv). 

Among other things, Section 1-7.530 of the USAM provides that: 

A. Except as provided in subparagraph B., of this section, components and 

personnel of the Department of Justice shall not respond to questions 

about the existence of an ongoing investigation or comment on its nature 
4 

or progress, including such things as the issuance or serving of a 

subpoena, prior to the public filing of the document. 

B. In matters that have already received substantial publicity, or 

about which the community needs to be reassured that the 

appropriate law enforcement agency is investigating the incident, 

or where the release of information is necessary to protect the 

public interest, safety or welfare, comments about or confirmation 

of an ongoing investigation may need to be made. In these 

unusual circumstances, the involved investigative agency will 

consult and obtain approval from the United States Attorney or 

Department Division handling the matter prior to disseminating any 

information to the media.

James Comey, who was the FBI Director at the time the WSJ article was 

published, told the OIG that the authority to disclose the existence of a pending 

investigation is “confined to the Director and the Deputy Director” and that in 

making such decisions “the default is we don’t talk” about pending investigations. 

He also told the OIG that “significant disclosures about investigations . . . always go 

through me” and that he could not remember any disclosure by any of the three 

Deputy Directors that served under him during his tenure that did not involve “close 

coordination” with him. Comey also told the OIG that the FBI does not disclose “a 

criminal investigation . . . anonymously sourced in a newspaper.” 

III. Factual Findings

A. Background Facts

1. Andrew McCabe

McCabe began his career with the FBI in 1996 as a Special Agent in the New 

York Field Office. McCabe has served in a variety of leadership positions in the FBI 

during his career, including as the Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism 

Division, the Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch, and the 

Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. On February 1, 

2016, McCabe was appointed Deputy Director of the FBI, overseeing all FBI 

domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities. McCabe became 

Acting Director of the FBI on May 9, 2017, when FBI Director James Comey was 

fired. McCabe served as Acting Director until August 1, 2017, when Christopher 

Wray was confirmed by the Senate as the new FBI Director. At that time, McCabe 

resumed his duties as Deputy Director, a position he held until January 29, 2018. 

2. The Clinton E-mail Investigation

The Clinton E-mail Investigation began as a referral from the Inspector 

General of the Intelligence Community concerning Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail 

server during her time as Secretary of State. On July 5, 2016, Comey publicly 

announced the FBI’s recommendation to the Department that “no charges are 

appropriate in this case.” On July 6, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch 
5 

announced that no charges would be brought related to the investigation. On 

October 28, 2016, two days before the online publication of the WSJ article at issue 

in this report, Comey informed Congress that the FBI had discovered additional 

Clinton-related e-mails in an unrelated investigation. On November 6, 2016, 

Comey announced that the FBI had completed its review of the additional e-mails 

and that “we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with 

respect to Secretary Clinton.” 

3. The Clinton Foundation Investigation

As detailed below, the disclosures by Special Counsel to the WSJ on October 

27 and 28 included statements effectively confirming the existence of the CF 

Investigation. Prior to October 27 and 28, the FBI had not publicly confirmed the 

existence of the CF Investigation, or issued any statements to the media discussing 

the details of that investigation. 

B. Events Leading to the October 30 Article and its Aftermath

1. Comey Refuses To Confirm the Existence of the CF 

Investigation (July 7) or Other Investigations 

(September 28)

In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

on July 7, 2016, FBI Director Comey refused to answer questions about whether 

the FBI was investigating the Clinton Foundation. Comey stated that he was “not 

going to comment on the existence or nonexistence” of the CF Investigation. 

Similarly, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on September 28, 

2016, Comey refused to confirm or deny two different investigations during an FBI 

oversight hearing. He stated: “our standard is we do not confirm or deny the 

existence of investigations.” 

2. McCabe–PADAG Call on the CF Investigation (August 12)

McCabe told the OIG that on August 12, 2016, he received a telephone call 

from PADAG regarding the FBI’s handling of the CF Investigation (the “PADAG 

call”). McCabe said that PADAG expressed concerns about FBI agents taking overt 

steps in the CF Investigation during the presidential campaign. According to 

McCabe, he pushed back, asking “are you telling me that I need to shut down a 

validly predicated investigation?” McCabe told us that the conversation was “very 

dramatic” and he never had a similar confrontation like the PADAG call with a highlevel Department official in his entire FBI career. 

3. The October 23 WSJ Article and Aftermath

On October 23, 2016, the WSJ published online an article by reporter Devlin 

Barrett stating that a political-action committee (PAC) run by Virginia Governor 

Terry McAuliffe and the Virginia Democratic Party (over which the article reported

McAuliffe “exerts considerable control”) collectively donated nearly $675,000 to the 
6 

2015 unsuccessful state senate campaign of the wife of Andrew McCabe.1 The 

article described McAuliffe as “an influential Democrat with long-standing ties to Bill 

and Hillary Clinton” and noted that McCabe was an FBI official “who later helped 

oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.” The article contained an 

official FBI statement that McCabe “played no role” in his wife’s 2015 state senate 

campaign and was promoted to FBI Deputy Director months after his wife’s defeat 

“where, . . . he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into 

Secretary Clinton’s emails.” According to the article, FBI officials stated that 

McCabe’s supervision of the Clinton E-mail case in 2016 did not present a conflict or 

ethics issues because his wife’s campaign was over by then. The article went on to 

note that when the Clinton E-mail Investigation was launched in July 2015, Mr. 

McCabe was “running the FBI’s Washington, D.C., field office, which provided 

personnel and resources to the Clinton email probe.”

Immediately following online publication of the article, there was substantial 

public discussion as to whether McCabe’s oversight of the Clinton E-mail 

Investigation had been appropriate in light of the information in the article.2 

Additionally, on October 24, 2016, Barrett e-mailed the AD/OPA about a follow-on 

story that he was working on. In that e-mail, Barrett asked AD/OPA a number of 

questions about McCabe’s involvement in certain matters, including the CF 

Investigation. In particular, Barrett’s e-mail said that he was told that:

in the summer, McCabe himself gave some instruction as to how to 

proceed with the Clinton Foundation probe, given that it was the 

height of election season and the FBI did not want to make a lot of 

overt moves that could be seen as going after [Clinton] or drawing 

attention to the probe.

Barrett’s e-mail asked AD/OPA “[h]ow accurate are those descriptions? Anything 

else I should know?” As detailed in Section 6 below, McCabe subsequently 

instructed Special Counsel to provide information to Barrett for the follow-on story.

4. The Attorney General Expresses Strong Concerns to 

McCabe and other FBI Officials about Leaks, and McCabe 

Discusses Recusing Himself from CF Investigation

(October 26)

McCabe told the OIG that during the October 2016 time frame, it was his 

“perception that there was a lot of information coming out of likely the [FBI’s] New 

York Field Office” that was ending up in the news. McCabe told the OIG that he 

“had some heated back-and-forths” with the New York Assistant Director in Charge

(“NY-ADIC”) over the issue of media leaks.

 1 A print version of the article was published in the WSJ on Monday, October 24, 2016.

2 In January 2017, the OIG announced it would conduct a review of allegations regarding 

various actions by the Department and the FBI in advance of the 2016 election, including allegations 

that McCabe should have been recused from participating in certain investigative matters.
7 

On October 26, 2016, McCabe and NY-ADIC participated in what McCabe

described as “a hastily convened conference call with the Attorney General who 

delivered the same message to us” about leaks, with specific focus being on leaks 

regarding the high-profile investigation by FBI’s New York Field Office into the death 

of Eric Garner. McCabe told us that he “never heard her use more forceful 

language.” NY-ADIC confirmed that the participants got “ripped by the AG on 

leaks.”

According to NY-ADIC’s testimony and an e-mail he sent to himself on 

October 31, McCabe indicated to NY-ADIC and a then-FBI Executive Assistant 

Director (“EAD”) in a conversation after Attorney General Lynch disconnected from 

the call that McCabe was recusing himself from the CF Investigation. According to 

NY-ADIC’s e-mail, McCabe told them “he may make a more formal decision at a 

later time.” NY-ADIC stated during his OIG interview: “I think [McCabe] couched it 

as like, hey, this is not final . . . I don’t know, I think he says he still has to talk 

about it.” NY-ADIC stated that he clarified with McCabe that unless McCabe told 

him otherwise, NY-ADIC would begin reporting to EAD on the CF Investigation. 

McCabe, however, told the OIG that he did not recall such a conversation. 

He said, “I suppose it's possible that I may have referred to the concept if that was 

being discussed generally at the time. But I would not have said to [NY-ADIC], 

like, I'm thinking about recusing.”

5. McCabe Is Excluded from a Meeting Regarding Clinton Emails Found on the Weiner Laptop (October 27)

On October 27, 2016 at 10:00 a.m., Comey held a meeting with the Clinton 

E-mail Investigation team to discuss obtaining a search warrant for a set of Clintonrelated e-mails the FBI had discovered on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, 

and taking additional steps in the Clinton E-mail Investigation. Special Counsel

attended the meeting. McCabe was out of town, but joined the meeting via 

conference call. Shortly after the meeting began, the then-FBI General Counsel

(“FBI-GC”) suggested, and Comey agreed, that McCabe should leave the call. 

Comey told us that he asked McCabe to drop off the call, and McCabe was “very 

unhappy about it.” Special Counsel also left the meeting. After discussions 

between FBI and Department leadership, on October 28, 2016, Comey sent a letter, 

over Department objections, informing Congress that the FBI was taking additional 

steps in the Clinton E-mail Investigation. 

Accounts differ about the reason for excluding McCabe from the October 27 

call. McCabe told the OIG that the reason stated on the call for dropping him 

related to the potential for discussion about classified information. However, 

Comey, , and and Special Counsel all told us that Comey asked McCabe to 

leave the call out of an abundance of caution because of appearance issues 

following revelations in the WSJ October 23 article about the campaign donations 

from McAuliffe-associated PACs to McCabe’s wife. McCabe discussed the issue of 

his participation in the Clinton e-mail matter further with Comey and FBI-GC by 

telephone later that day. After these conversations, McCabe sent a text message to 
8 

Special Counsel stating: “I spoke to both. Both understand that no decision on 

recusal will be made until I return and weigh in.”

On November 1, 2016, McCabe sent e-mails to FBI executives and officials 

overseeing the CF Investigation and the Clinton E-mail Investigation informing 

them that he was recusing himself from those investigations. 

6. McCabe Authorizes Special Counsel and AD/OPA To Talk 

to Barrett Regarding CF Investigation and To Disclose 

August 12 McCabe-PADAG Call

a. McCabe’s Authorization

By October 25, 2016, McCabe had been notified that Barrett was working on 

a follow-up story to the October 23 article that would cover McCabe’s oversight of 

the CF Investigation and potential connections with McAuliffe campaign 

contributions to McCabe’s wife. McCabe thereafter authorized Special Counsel and 

AD/OPA to talk to Barrett about this follow-up story. Special Counsel told us that 

the authorization from McCabe was done orally and it was “pretty general.” Special 

Counsel further stated that she understood from AD/OPA that the first call with 

Barrett would be “receive mode” to understand what Barrett’s story would cover 

and then they would develop a response.

b. Calls with Barrett and Special Counsel’s 

Communications with McCabe (October 27 and 28)

At approximately 12:06 p.m. on October 27, 2016, shortly before Special 

Counsel was to speak with Barrett for the first time, McCabe texted Special Counsel

asking “Are you in with wsj now”.3 About 10 minutes later, at 12:19 p.m., Special 

Counsel texted McCabe back stating that she was “going there now” and would call 

him “immediately after re call with devlin.” Special Counsel told the OIG that she 

and AD/OPA then had their first call with Barrett in “receive mode” regarding his 

follow-up story. According to Special Counsel’s contemporaneous notes of the call 

and testimony to the OIG, she and AD/OPA learned during the first call that Barrett 

had sources who were adamant that McCabe gave a purported order to “stand

down” on the CF Investigation before the 2016 presidential election, implying that 

McCabe wanted to shut down the investigation for improper reasons.

Special Counsel texted McCabe at 1:25 p.m. and stated “Can you talk now?” 

After some additional texts between them to arrange the call, telephone records 

reflect that McCabe and Special Counsel spoke by telephone at 2:54 p.m. for 51 

minutes. According to Special Counsel, she briefed McCabe on the conversation 

with Barrett and the purported “stand down” order. Special Counsel told the OIG 

that McCabe responded by reminding her that the August 12 PADAG call was 

completely inconsistent with that allegation. Special Counsel told us that she 

understood McCabe wanted her to provide the account of this August 12 call as 

 3 By this time, McCabe had already left for and he remained out of town from 

October 27 through 30, 2016.
9 

rebuttal to that “stand down” allegation and made a large notation of “Fri. Aug. 12 

with [PADAG]” at the top of her notes to remind herself to discuss it in the next call 

with Barrett.

When interviewed by the OIG on November 29, 2017, McCabe’s recollection 

of his call with Special Counsel was consistent with hers. Specifically, McCabe 

stated that he authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to provide to Barrett the 

account of his August 12 call with PADAG because McCabe thought it was the “best 

example” to counter the “incredibly damaging” narrative in Barrett’s intended story. 

McCabe said that he did not view the disclosure to the WSJ about the August 12 

PADAG call as disclosing the existence of the CF Investigation because the purpose 

was to demonstrate the FBI’s independence, and “there really wasn’t any discussion 

of the case, of the merits of the case, the targets and subjects of the case.” 

McCabe stated that this was the only time in his career where he had 

authorized the disclosure to the media of a one-on-one discussion that he had with 

a member of the Department’s leadership. 

FBI text message and phone records show that, immediately before Special 

Counsel and AD/OPA spoke for the second time with Barrett, McCabe called Special 

Counsel at 4:38 p.m. and the two spoke for 6 minutes. E-mail and text message 

records show that, approximately 1 minute after the call between McCabe and 

Special Counsel ended, Special Counsel and AD/OPA began their second call with 

Barrett, which lasted from approximately 4:45 p.m. to 5:21 p.m. According to 

Special Counsel’s contemporaneous notes and testimony to the OIG, in this followup call with Barrett she responded to the claims regarding FBI leadership’s handling 

of the CF Investigation and provided the account of the August 12 McCabe-PADAG 

call as the “best evidence” to counter Barrett’s narrative.

Two minutes after the call ended, Special Counsel texted McCabe at 5:23 

p.m. stating: “We’re done. He’s going to look at his story again and will circle back 

with him in the morning.” According to telephone records, McCabe thereafter called 

Special Counsel twice, once at 6:47 p.m., when they spoke for about 5 minutes, 

and again at 7:06 p.m., when they spoke for about 6 minutes.

During the early afternoon of October 28, 2016, Special Counsel and AD/OPA 

had an additional call with Barrett that lasted at least 15 minutes. According to 

Special Counsel’s contemporaneous notes and testimony to the OIG, Barrett 

provided them a preview of the revised story, which now incorporated aspects of 

the McCabe-PADAG call on August 12 to rebut the “stand-down” allegation.

After this call ended, Special Counsel texted McCabe at 1:33 p.m. stating: 

“Just got off with barrett. Give me a call here.” According to telephone records, at 

1:38 p.m., McCabe and Special Counsel spoke for 23 minutes. 

7. The October 30 WSJ Article

On October 30, 2016, prior to the article’s online publication, Special Counsel

exchanged text messages with a then-FBI Deputy Assistant Director (“DAD”) 
10

regarding the forthcoming article. DAD forwarded to Special Counsel a Washington 

Post article from the day before (October 29), entitled “Justice Officials Warned FBI 

that Comey’s Decision to Update Congress Was Not Consistent With Department 

Policy.” The article stated that Department officials told Comey that his decision to 

update Congress about the discovery of additional Clinton e-mails prior to the 

election was inconsistent with Department policy, and DAD observed in his text 

message that “This is all [PADAG].” Special Counsel responded “Yeah. I saw it. 

Makes me feel WAY less bad about throwing him under the bus in the forthcoming 

CF article.” Special Counsel told us that she was referring in this text to her 

disclosure to Barrett about the August 12 conversation between McCabe and 

PADAG, and what she meant by “throwing [PADAG] under the bus” was that it was 

an “unfortunate sort of fact or consequence” but it was “necessary to rebut the 

notion that [Andy] was trying to kill the Clinton Foundation case for inappropriate 

or improper reasons.” 

Barrett’s follow-up article was published online on Sunday, October 30, 2016, 

at about 3:34 p.m., and appeared in the WSJ print edition the next day under the 

title “FBI, Justice Feud in Clinton Probe.” The article described how Comey’s 

disclosure that FBI agents were taking another look at the Clinton e-mails “lays 

bare, just days before the election, tensions inside the bureau and the Justice 

Department over how to investigate the Democratic presidential nominee.” The 

article discussed not only the FBI’s handling of the Clinton E-mail Investigation, but 

“internal disagreements within the bureau and the Justice Department surrounding 

the Clintons’ family philanthropy.” It stated that “McCabe in particular was caught . 

. . [in] an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department 

and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case.” Thereafter, the article 

highlighted the campaign donations to McCabe’s wife by PACs associated with 

McAuliffe, who was described as “a longtime ally of the Clintons and . . . a Clinton 

Foundation Board member.” The article identified McCabe as the FBI official who 

“sought to refocus the Clinton Foundation probe,” and reported that agents “further 

down the FBI chain of command” had been told to “[s]tand down” on the Clinton 

Foundation investigation with the understanding that “the order had come from the 

deputy director — Mr. McCabe.” The article stated that “[o]thers familiar with the 

matter deny Mr. McCabe or any other senior FBI official gave such a stand-down 

instruction.” The article recounted the August 12 conversation between McCabe 

and PADAG (identified as an unnamed “senior Justice Department Official”). It 

stated:

According to a person familiar with the probes, on Aug. 12, a 

senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his 

displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly 

pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. Mr. 

McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue the issue as long 

as they didn’t use overt methods requiring Justice Department 

approvals. 

The Justice Department official was “very pissed off,” according 

to one person close to McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the 

FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dormant. . . . 
11

“Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated 

investigation?” Mr. McCabe asked, according to people familiar with 

the conversation. After a pause, the official replied “Of course not,” 

these people said.4

8. McCabe Admonishes Two FBI Executives for Leaks in the 

October 30 WSJ Article Regarding the CF Investigation

Two FBI Executives, NY-ADIC and the then-Assistant Director in Charge of 

the Washington Field Division (“W-ADIC”), told us that they each received calls 

from McCabe admonishing them for leaks contained in the October 30 WSJ article 

about the CF Investigation. At no time did McCabe disclose to either of them that 

McCabe had authorized Special Counsel to disclose information about the CF 

Investigation to the WSJ reporter.

According to NY-ADIC’s contemporaneous October 30 calendar notes and 

testimony to the OIG, McCabe called NY-ADIC on Sunday, October 30, at 5:11 

p.m., to express concerns over leaks from the FBI’s New York Field Office in the 

October 30 WSJ article. NY-ADIC told the OIG that McCabe was “ticked about 

leaks” in the article on the CF Investigation, but NY-ADIC “pushed back” a little to 

note that New York agents were not privy to some of the information in the article. 

Also according to NY-ADIC’s calendar notes, as well as his testimony to the OIG, 

NY-ADIC spoke to EAD and other FBI managers after his call with McCabe to voice 

concerns “about getting yelled at about this stuff” when he was supposed to be 

dealing with EAD on Clinton Foundation issues because of his understanding that 

McCabe had recused himself from the matter.

W-ADIC told the OIG that he received a call from McCabe regarding the 

October 30 WSJ article and that McCabe admonished him regarding leaks in the 

article. According to W-ADIC, McCabe told him to “get his house in order.”

McCabe told us that he did not recall calling either NY-ADIC or W-ADIC to 

reprimand them for leaks in the October 30 WSJ article.

9. Comey Expresses Concern About Leaks at his Staff 

Meeting and Discusses the October 30 WSJ Article with 

McCabe (October 31)

On Monday morning, October 31, 2016, Comey held a staff meeting, which 

Special Counsel attended. According to Special Counsel’s contemporaneous notes, 

during the meeting Comey said “Need to figure out how to get our folks to 

understand why leaks hurt our organization.” That same day McCabe and Comey 

had a face-to-face conversation about the October 30 WSJ article. The accounts 

they provided to the OIG of this discussion contradicted one another. 

 4 Both McCabe and PADAG told the OIG that the account of the August 12, 2016 telephone 

call given in the October 30, 2016 WSJ article was an accurate description of their discussion. 

However, PADAG told the OIG that he thought that “the Bureau was trying to spin this conversation as 

some evidence of political interference, which was totally unfair.”
12

a. McCabe’s Account

According to McCabe’s testimony to the OIG on November 29, 2017, he and 

Comey discussed the October 30 WSJ article in person on October 31, 2016, when 

McCabe returned to the office from a trip . McCabe said that he told 

Comey that he had “authorized AD/OPA and Special Counsel to disclose the account 

of the August 12th call” and did not say anything to suggest in any way that it was 

unauthorized. McCabe told us that Comey “did not react negatively, just kind of 

accepted it.” McCabe also told us Comey thought it was a “good” idea that they 

presented this information to rebut the inaccurate and one-sided narrative that the 

FBI was not doing its job and was subject to DOJ political pressure, but the 

Department and PADAG were likely to be angry that “this information made its way 

into the paper.”

McCabe told us that he did not recall telling Comey prior to publication of the 

October 30 article that he intended to authorize or had authorized Special Counsel

and AD/OPA to recount his August 12 call with PADAG to the WSJ, although he said 

it was possible he did. When asked why he did not discuss it with the Director in 

advance, McCabe said the Director was “very, very occupied” at the time with the 

Weiner laptop issue. McCabe told us that if he had not been out of town, he would 

have talked to Comey about the disclosure in advance because it involved a 

significant issue. When questioned by the OIG as to whether, as Deputy Director, 

he had the capability to reach Comey wherever he was and whenever he needed, 

McCabe acknowledged that he did but added it was challenging to do so between 

October 27 and 28, given the Weiner laptop issue and the fact that Comey told him 

he did not want to discuss that issue with him.

b. Comey’s Account

We questioned Comey specifically about the portion of the October 30 WSJ 

article that pertained to the PADAG call. Comey told us that he recalled seeing this 

article but did not know how the disclosure about the PADAG call in the October 30 

article happened. He said that he was “very concerned” about that part of the 

article because he felt it would further poison the FBI’s relationship with 

Department and it “explicitly confirms the existence of a criminal investigation” of 

the Clinton Foundation. Comey told us he considered the disclosure about the 

PADAG call “problematic” because it related to “sensitive FBI information” and was 

unauthorized, unless either he or McCabe authorized it and Comey knew that he did 

not authorize it.

Comey told us that, prior to the article’s publication, he did not have any 

discussions with McCabe regarding disclosure of the August 12 PADAG call. 

According to Comey, he discussed the issue with McCabe after the article was 

published, and at that time McCabe “definitely did not tell me that he authorized” 

the disclosure of the PADAG call. Comey said that McCabe gave him the exact 

opposite impression: 

I don’t remember exactly how, but I remember some form or fashion 

and it could have been like “can you believe this crap? How does this 
13

stuff get out” kind of thing? But I took from whatever communication 

we had that he wasn’t involved in it. 

. . .

I have a strong impression he conveyed to me “it wasn’t me boss.” 

And I don’t think that was by saying those words, I think it was most 

likely by saying “I don’t know how this shit gets in the media or why 

would people talk about this kind of thing,” words that I would fairly 

take as “I, Andy, didn’t do it.” And I actually didn’t suspect Andy,

after conversations with [my chief of staff], my worry was, was his 

aide [Special Counsel] doing it.

When asked by the OIG about whether he would have approved the 

disclosure about the PADAG call to the WSJ, Comey stated: “[S]o just to make 

sure there's no fuzz on it, I did not authorize this. I would not have authorized this. 

If someone says that I did, then we ought to have another conversation because I, 

it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.”

Comey said he believed that McCabe would have known from experience to 

discuss any disclosures regarding pending FBI investigations with Comey before 

releasing such information to the media. Comey told us that McCabe would have 

known that the disclosure of the existence of a specific investigation was a 

significant event “that he should discuss with me first” given Comey’s responsibility 

as FBI Director for how the FBI interacts with the world. Comey told us that the 

disclosure of the existence of a specific investigation would require much internal 

discussion on the form and wording, and would not be done through “anonymous[]

source[s] in a newspaper.” Comey further told us that he would not have 

authorized the disclosure of the account of the McCabe-PADAG August 12 call, even 

if an argument had been made that it was in the best interest of the FBI. Comey 

said that such an argument would not have been persuasive for him in light of the 

following circumstances: (1) the disclosure involved publicly confirming the 

existence of the CF Investigation, which Comey had declined to do 3 months earlier

during testimony before Congress; (2) the disclosure risked harming FBIDepartment relations; and (3) the disclosure occurred 2 days after the firestorm 

surrounding the October 28 letter to Congress re-opening the Clinton E-mail 

Investigation. 

10. Knowledge of Other FBI Executives

McCabe told us that among FBI executive managers “people knew that 

generally” he had authorized the disclosure to the Wall Street Journal, “because it 

was my conversation” and “the fact that [AD/OPA] and [Special Counsel] were 

engaging with Devlin Barrett over the article was not a secret.” McCabe identified 

several FBI managers who he believed likely or possibly would have known, based 

on his interactions with them, that he authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to 

talk to the WSJ and disclose the account of his August 12 call with PADAG. 

However, none of the potential witnesses identified by McCabe (FBI-GC, 

Comey’s Chief of Staff, The Counterintelligence Assistant Director (“AD-CI”), and 
14

McCabe’s then-Chief of Staff ) corroborated this or recalled knowing at the time, or 

even now, that McCabe had authorized the disclosure.5 FBI-GC told us that, had 

McCabe discussed the matter with him, he would have counseled McCabe to avoid 

anything related to the CF Investigation, including authorizing disclosures to the 

press, given FBI-GC’s and Comey’s pending concerns about McCabe’s potential 

appearance issues on Clinton-related matters. Comey’s Chief of Staff, AD-CI, and 

McCabe’s Chief of Staff told us that had they heard about such an authorization 

they would have remembered it because it would have been significant and spurred 

conversation among other senior executive managers. These witnesses also told us 

that because the disclosure detailed a private conversation between two highranking officials at the FBI and the Department on a high-profile investigation, they 

did not believe that it was an authorized disclosure. McCabe’s Chief of Staff told us 

that:

I just can't imagine that the Deputy would have authorized the leak. 

It just doesn't seem to serve, I mean, I guess it serves, it serves the 

purpose of the Deputy by saying, hey look, do you want us to shut this 

thing down? I guess it serves Andy in that way, but it really, it really 

highlights a dysfunction between the FBI and the, and DOJ. And to 

that end, it doesn't really serve the greater good.

11. McCabe Admonishes NY-ADIC for CF Investigation Leaks 

Following November 3 WSJ Article (November 4) 

On November 3, 2016, the WSJ published another story by Barrett on the CF 

Investigation and it repeated parts of the account of the McCabe-PADAG call. That 

evening, McCabe e-mailed NY-ADIC and stated: “This is the latest WSJ article. Call 

me tomorrow.” According to NY-ADIC’s calendar notes on November 4 and 

testimony to the OIG, NY-ADIC and McCabe spoke for approximately 10 minutes 

around 7 a.m., regarding “leaks and WSJ article” and that McCabe was “angry.” 

NY-ADIC’s calendar notes also reflect that McCabe expressed to him: “will be 

consequence[s] and get to bottom of it post elect[ion]. Need leaks to stop. 

Damaging to org.”

McCabe told the OIG that he did not recall the details of his conversation with 

NY-ADIC on November 4, but it was “probably about leaks” to the media.

12. INSD Opens an Investigation of the WSJ Leak (May 2017)

In May 2017, the FBI Inspection Division (INSD) expanded a pre-existing 

investigation of media leaks to include determining the source of the information in 

the October 30 WSJ article regarding the August 12 McCabe-PADAG call. INSD 

added the October 30 article to their pre-existing matter because it appeared to 

 5 FBI-GC told us that McCabe had told him recently in discussions on attending OIG interviews 

that the OIG was looking at the October 30 article and that he, McCabe, had authorized the disclosure 

of some unspecified information that appeared in that article.
15

involve an instance of someone at the FBI leaking the Deputy Director’s private 

conversations to the media.

13. INSD Interviews McCabe under Oath on May 9 

INSD interviewed McCabe under oath regarding the October 30 WSJ article 

on May 9, 2017.6 The INSD investigators documented the May 9 interview in 

contemporaneous notes and in a draft Signed Sworn Statement prepared shortly 

after the interview, and later provided testimony to the OIG regarding their 

recollections of McCabe’s testimony. In his interview with the OIG on November 

29, 2017, McCabe provided a starkly different account of what he believes he said 

and what occurred during this interview. Because these conflicting accounts are

central to the issues addressed in this report, we address the INSD accounts and 

McCabe’s account in detail in separate subsections below.

a. INSD Written Record of the Interview and 

Testimony by Interviewing Agents

Two INSD agents, a Supervisory Special Agent (“INSD-SSA1”), and the thenChief of the INSD Internal Investigations Section (“INSD Section Chief”), 

interviewed McCabe under oath in his office on the afternoon of May 9 concerning 

the leak matters they were investigating.7 During the interview, after discussing 

with McCabe an unrelated media leak allegation, the INSD agents provided McCabe 

with a copy of the October 30 article to review, and which McCabe initialed. 

According to INSD SSA 1’s contemporaneous notes and both agents’ testimony to 

the OIG, INSD drew McCabe’s attention specifically to the portion of the October 30 

WSJ article regarding McCabe’s August 12 call with the PADAG. 

INSD-Section Chief told us that the entire interview, including the discussion 

on the October 30 article, was conducted in the privacy of McCabe’s personal office 

with just McCabe, and INSD-SSA1 in attendance, while they were sitting at 

a table in McCabe’s office, where McCabe initialed the copy of the WSJ article. 

INSD-Section Chief told us that all of the INSD interviews with McCabe were 

conducted in the privacy of his office at his table “from beginning to end.” INSDSection Chief said that INSD’s standard practice is to conduct an interview in a 

private setting solely with INSD agents and the particular witness involved in the 

matter. 

INSD-SSA1 took two and half pages of contemporaneous notes during the 

interview, almost all of which concerned the October 30 article and the August 12 

call between McCabe and PADAG. According to INSD-SSA1’s notes and testimony 

to the OIG, McCabe was given an opportunity to review the article and he then told 

 

6 Later in the day, after the interview, President Trump fired FBI Director Comey, and McCabe 

became Acting FBI Director, a position he remained in until Director Wray’s confirmation on August 1, 

2017.

7 INSD-Section Chief has since been promoted 
16

the agents that he remembered the article and said that the account in the article 

of his August 12 call with PADAG was accurate. Also according to INSD-SSA1’s

contemporaneous notes and testimony to the OIG, McCabe told them that he had 

“no idea where it came from,” that was “who the source was” who disclosed the 

account of his August 12 call with PADAG to the WSJ. INSD-SSA1 further told the 

OIG that McCabe stated during the interview that he had related the account of the 

August 12 call to others numerous times, leaving INSD-SSA1 with the impression 

that INSD-SSA1 would “not get anywhere by asking” McCabe how many people 

could have known about what appeared to be a private conversation between him 

and PADAG. INSD-SSA1 told us that he didn’t need to take many notes during the 

interview because, at that point, he viewed McCabe as “the victim” of the leak and 

McCabe had told the INSD agents that he did not know how this happened. INSDSSA1 also told us that the whole interaction was short, maybe 5 to 7 minutes, and 

flowing because McCabe was seemingly the victim and claimed he did not know

who did it. INSD-SSA1 said that McCabe’s information could be summarized in one 

paragraph in his draft statement.

Similarly, INSD-Section Chief told us that the “overarching” take-aways from 

their interview with McCabe were that McCabe did not grant anyone permission to 

divulge the account of his August 12 call with PADAG to the media, he had not 

personally shared that information with the media, and he considered it a leak. 

INSD-Section Chief also told us that McCabe acknowledged that he had expressed 

the sentiment reflected in the quote “are you telling me that I need to shut down a 

validly predicated investigation,” to PADAG, and was disappointed that it had 

appeared in the article. INSD-Section Chief further told us that their discussion 

with McCabe about the October 30 article was not rushed and that none of their 

discussions with McCabe on media leaks ended abruptly.

b. INSD Prepares a Draft Statement for McCabe To 

Sign, Which McCabe Fails To Do (May 12 and June 

23) 

Three days later, on May 12, 2017, INSD e-mailed McCabe a draft Signed 

Sworn Statement (SSS) for his review and signature that initially concerned an 

unrelated leak matter but that had been revised to include his comments at the 

May 9 interview about the October 30 WSJ article. The e-mail highlighted that a 

new paragraph had been added, starting on page 10, regarding statements made 

by McCabe about the October 30 article. This paragraph stated:

On 05/09/2017, [INSD-Section Chief] and [INSD-SSA1] provided me 

with a photocopy of a Wall Street Journal article, dated 10/30/2016, 

and requested I evaluate and assess the content of the first three 

paragraphs appearing on the last page for accuracy. My assessment 

of the referenced portion of the article is that it is basically an accurate 

depiction of an actual telephonic interaction I had with a Department 

of Justice (DOJ) executive. I do not know the identity of the source of 

the information contained in the article. Since this event, I have 

shared the circumstances of this interaction with numerous FBI senior 

executives and other FBI personnel. I gave no one authority to share 
17

any information relative to my interaction with the DOJ executive with 

any member of the media. I initialed a photocopy of the article, which 

is attached to my statement as Exhibit Number 5.

This draft SSS paragraph is consistent with INSD’s contemporaneous notes of 

the May 9 interview and the sworn recollections of both INSD agents who 

interviewed McCabe, as they described to the OIG.

As of approximately 1 month later, McCabe had failed to execute and return 

the draft SSS. Accordingly, on June 23, INSD again e-mailed it to him and again 

requested that he review and sign it. However, INSD accidentally sent it to a 

different FBI employee rather than to then-Acting Director Andrew G. McCabe. The 

unintended recipient forwarded the INSD e-mail to then-Acting Director McCabe. 

That same date, McCabe e-mailed INSD to note the error in the address. McCabe 

did not sign the draft SSS and did not communicate with INSD regarding the draft 

SSS until August 18, as described below.

c. McCabe’s November 29, 2017 Account of the May 9 

INSD Interview and His Response to Draft 

Statement

During his OIG interview on November 29, 2017, McCabe provided a very 

different account of his interactions with INSD on May 9. Specifically, McCabe told 

the OIG that the INSD agents “must have” gotten it wrong when they wrote in the 

draft SSS that he told them on May 9 that he did not authorize the conversation 

and that he did not know who the source was. McCabe said that he did not believe 

he told INSD that he did not authorize the disclosure, but added “I don't remember 

what I said to them.” He added “I don't remember discussing authorization of that 

article” with INSD and that “the INSD folks and I walked away from that, from that 

exchange with a difference in understanding.” However, he acknowledged to the 

OIG that his initials appeared on the copy of the WSJ article that INSD presented to 

him for review during the interview. McCabe told the OIG that he did not know and 

could not explain how INSD got the impression that he thought it was an 

unauthorized leak because he said he does not believe he told INSD that.

McCabe also asserted that the May 9 meeting concerned an unrelated leak 

matter and that the discussion about the October 30 article occurred near the end 

of the meeting when “one of the people on that team pulled me aside and asked 

me a question about the Wall Street Journal article.” He elaborated by stating that 

as the INSD agents were “walking out of my office into the hallway, and [INSDSection Chief] kind of grabbed me by the arm and said, hey, let me ask you about 

something else.” McCabe said that he and INSD-Section Chief were still in his 

office, he thought standing, during the conversation but that the other two INSD 

agents (McCabe recalled there being three INSD agents present that day, not two) 

were outside his office. He said INSD-Section Chief showed him the October 30 

WSJ article at that time and asked him “a question or two about it. And that was it. 

It was a very quick exchange.” McCabe said he was confused as to why this article 

was even being raised because it did not relate to a different media leak matter 

that McCabe asserted was the main focus of their meeting on May 9.
18

McCabe told the OIG that he did not remember when he first reviewed the 

revised draft SSS addressing the October 30 WSJ article, but that “it could have 

been months later” after he received it. He said: “I don't remember reviewing the 

statement while I was Acting Director. It's possible, but I don't remember when I 

actually, I think it's possible I just put the entire thing aside and said I'll deal with 

that some other time. The other time ended up being when I was back as Deputy 

Director.” McCabe returned to his position as Deputy Director after Director Wray 

was confirmed, on August 1, 2017.

14. McCabe’s Initial Account under Oath to the OIG on July 

28, 2017

On Friday, July 28, 2017, the OIG interviewed McCabe under oath in 

connection with its ongoing review of various FBI and Department actions in 

advance of the 2016 Election. The primary focus of the interview was to determine 

McCabe’s awareness of the existence of certain text messages between Special 

Counsel and DAD that the OIG had recently discovered. During the course of the 

interview, the OIG showed McCabe text messages dated October 27, 28, and 30 

from Special Counsel to DAD, indicating that Special Counsel had been in contact 

with WSJ reporter Barrett and appeared to have been a source for the October 30 

WSJ article. At the time of the interview, the OIG was not aware of INSD’s May 9 

interview of McCabe.

The OIG showed McCabe a text exchange on October 30 in which DAD 

forwarded an article from the Washington Post to Special Counsel, entitled "Justice 

officials warned FBI that Comey's decision to update Congress was not consistent 

with department policy." DAD texted “This is all [PADAG].” Special Counsel

responded "Yeah I saw it. Makes me feel WAY less bad about throwing him under 

the bus in the forthcoming CF article." These texts suggested that Special Counsel

may have provided the information to Barrett concerning McCabe’s August 12 call 

that eventually appeared in the October 30 WSJ article. After the OIG showed 

these text messages to McCabe, the following exchange took place:

OIG: . . . Which we're not sure what [CF] relates to, perhaps Clinton 

Foundation. Do you happen to know?

MR. MCCABE: I don't know what she's referring to.

OIG: Or perhaps a code name? 

MR. MCCABE: Not one that I recall, but this thing is like right in the 

middle of the allegations about me, and so I don't really want to get 

into discussing this article with you.

OIG: Okay.

MR. MCCABE: Because it just seems like we're kind of crossing the 

strings a little bit there.

OIG: Was she ever authorized to speak to reporters in this time 

period, was [Special Counsel]? 

MR. MCCABE: Not that I'm aware of.
19

Later in the interview, the OIG directed McCabe’s attention to other texts 

from October 27 and 28 indicating that Special Counsel was talking to Barrett. 

McCabe stated “I was not even in town during those days. So I can't tell you where 

she was or what she was doing.”

15. McCabe Calls the OIG on August 1 To Correct his 

Testimony

On Tuesday, August 1, 2017, McCabe placed a telephone call to an OIG 

Assistant Inspector General (“AIG”) to correct the statement he gave on July 28. 

In an e-mail prepared the same day, AIG summarized the call, in relevant part, as 

follows:

McCabe stated that he believes that [Special Counsel] may have been 

authorized by him to work with [AD/OPA] and to speak with the WSJ 

for the late October article. He said he had worked with [Special 

Counsel] on a previous WSJ article earlier in the month when they 

spent the day trying to correct inaccuracies. At the time the second 

article was being prepared, McCabe was out of town 

 He believes he may have authorized [Special Counsel] to work 

with [AD/OPA] and speak to Devlin Barrett (the WSJ reporter) because

she had previously worked with McCabe on the issues raised by his 

wife’s political campaign and was very familiar with those issues . . . . 

He said [AD/OPA] would be familiar with Special Counsel’s role and 

authority to speak.

The OIG questioned McCabe about his August 1 call during his OIG interview, 

on November 29. McCabe told the OIG that he called AIG on August 1 after 

spending “a lot of time thinking about it” over the weekend, and that “on further 

recollection, yeah, I remember authorizing [Special Counsel] and [AD/OPA] to talk 

to the Wall Street Journal.” He said “it was important to me that [AIG] and you all 

did not have the misimpression about the authorization that I had given to, to 

[AD/OPA] and [Special Counsel] to interact with Devlin Barrett on that article.” He 

further stated that it was important to him that the OIG not “start heading off in a 

direction on [AD/OPA] and [Special Counsel] that's not, that would not have been 

accurate.”

When the OIG pointed out that McCabe’s statement on July 28 that he didn’t 

know where Special Counsel was or what she was doing on October 27 or 28 was 

inaccurate, he stated: 

Yeah, and as I've said before, and she made clear, I, I was very concerned, 

as I think I said at that time, uncomfortable about discussing things that I 

thought were outside the scope that [AIG] had identified for me that day . . . 

. And I felt like that's the direction that the questions were coming from. I 

didn't feel comfortable saying, you know, vouching for what was in [DAD] 

and [Special Counsel]'s texts and saying what they meant. I had not 

thought about the Wall Street Journal article and the conversations we had 

around it in quite a long time. And so, I misspoke.
20

McCabe denied that being shown the text messages on July 28 that indicated 

Special Counsel had spoken to Barrett caused him to change his account in order to 

protect Special Counsel. McCabe told the OIG that this “thinking process” was done 

“on my own” without talking to any FBI employees or reviewing past e-mails or text 

messages. He stated that he did not discuss the Devlin texts with Special Counsel

after the July 28 interview. While Special Counsel told the OIG that following 

McCabe’s July 28 OIG interview, she and McCabe discussed her text messages, she 

said that McCabe did not discuss his OIG testimony about the WSJ article, or the 

WSJ article itself, at that time. Special Counsel stated that she and McCabe did not 

discuss “getting their stories straight” with respect to the WSJ article. Special 

Counsel told the OIG that the last time she spoke with McCabe about the WSJ 

article was in approximately October 2016 (when the article was published).

16. INSD and the OIG Interview Special Counsel under Oath 

Regarding the October 30 Article (August 7, September 7, 

October 26)

On August 7, 2017, INSD interviewed Special Counsel concerning the 

October 30 article. At that time, INSD investigators were not aware of Special 

Counsel’s texts on October 27, 28, and 30 concerning her contacts with Barrett and 

they had not made progress uncovering who may have been the source of the 

account of the August 12 McCabe-PADAG call provided to the WSJ. During the 

interview, Special Counsel told INSD agents under oath that she was a source for 

the disclosure of the account of the August 12 McCabe-PADAG call, the disclosure 

was fully authorized by McCabe, and Special Counsel and AD/OPA provided the 

information to Barrett in a telephone call from the FBI OPA office. Special Counsel

signed an SSS to this effect on August 15, 2017, which included as an exhibit her 

contemporaneous notes of the discussions with Barrett on October 27 and 28, 

2016. Special Counsel gave the same account to the OIG in two subsequent 

interviews on September 7 and October 26, 2017. 

17. INSD Interviews McCabe Again (August 18)

On August 18, 2017, INSD-SSA1 and a second SSA (“INSD-SSA2”) reinterviewed McCabe after being told by Special Counsel that it was McCabe who had 

authorized the conversation with Barrett in advance of the October 30 WSJ article.

In light of Special Counsel’s testimony, INSD-SSA1 told us that, during the 

re-interview, he affirmatively showed McCabe the WSJ article again and asked him 

again if he authorized the disclosure regarding the PADAG call because INSD had 

received conflicting information. INSD-SSA1 said McCabe “looked at it, and he read 

it. And as nice as could be, he said yep. Yep, I did,” although he said he did not 

recall specifically doing it. INSD-SSA1 stated that McCabe said he did not recall 

authorizing the description of the PADAG call, but that McCabe “took responsibility, 

or he took ownership of it,” and that he was “okay with it.” According to INSDSSA1’s testimony: 

I remember saying to him, at, I said, sir, you understand that we put a 

lot of work into this based on what you've told us. I mean, and I even 
21

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 he kind of just looked down, kind of nodded, and said, yeah, 

I'm sorry.

INSD-SSA1’s contemporaneous notes also reflected that he said to McCabe 

that INSD would have “taken a different approach” if McCabe “had told me and 

[INSD-Section Chief] that he authorized the article in WSJ.” McCabe responded, 

according to INSD-SSA1’s notes, “‘I know’ but there was a lot going on at the 

time.” 

According to INSD-SSA2, and consistent with contemporaneous notes, 

McCabe stated that he did authorize Special Counsel and AD/OPA to speak “on 

background” to Barrett for the article. INSD-SSA2 said that McCabe told them that 

he did not specifically recall authorizing the disclosure of the PADAG call to the 

WSJ, but assumes he did.

McCabe told us that he convened the August 18 meeting with INSD “for the 

purpose of telling them that I would not sign the signed sworn statement” because, 

among other things, it inaccurately reflected that he had not authorized the 

disclosure to the WSJ. McCabe told us that the August 18 meeting was the first 

time he told INSD that the signed sworn statement was inaccurate.

18. The OIG Assumes Responsibility for the Investigation

(August 31)

Following the INSD interviews of Special Counsel and McCabe in August 

2017, INSD officials became concerned that there was a significant question of 

whether Deputy Director McCabe had testified truthfully to INSD on May 9. INSDSection Chief told us that she recommended turning the matter over to the OIG 

because it was no longer appropriate for GS-14 agents in the Internal 

Investigations Section to continue the investigation of their Deputy Director, and 

that INSD “needed to turn this over to an independent authority to review and 

investigate.” The Assistant Director for INSD agreed, and referred the matter to 

the OIG. The OIG formally accepted the referral on August 31, 2017.

19. The OIG Interviews McCabe under Oath on November 29

On November 29, 2017, the OIG interviewed McCabe under oath again, this 

time addressing the WSJ leak issue in detail. McCabe was represented by counsel 

during the interview, and, consistent with OIG practice, the interview was audio 

recorded. Among other things, and as detailed in prior sections, McCabe told the 

OIG: 

• that he authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to disclose his August 

12, 2016 conversation with PADAG to the WSJ and he had frequent 

contact and communication with Special Counsel about the WSJ 

article, before it was published, while he was out of town on October 

27 and 28; 
22

• that he did not recall discussing the disclosure with Comey in advance 

of authorizing it, although it was possible that he did; 

• that after publication of the October 30 WSJ article he told Comey that 

he (McCabe) had authorized the disclosure, and that Comey “did not 

react negatively, just kind of accepted it” and thought it was “good” 

that they presented this information to rebut the inaccurate and onesided narrative that the FBI was not doing its job; 

• that other FBI executive managers knew generally that he had 

authorized the disclosure;

• that, notwithstanding the accounts of the INSD agents, contemporary 

notes, or the draft SSS, he did not tell INSD on May 9 that he had not 

authorized the disclosure to the WSJ about the PADAG call;

• that at the end of the May 9 meeting with the INSD agents on an 

unrelated leak matter he was pulled aside by INSD-Section Chief alone 

and asked a question or two about the October 30 WSJ article; 

• that, despite being asked to sign the SSS on multiple occasions, he 

probably did not review the language in the draft SSS until after 

Director Wray was confirmed (which was on August 1, 2017); 

• that the explanation for his inaccurate July 28 testimony to the OIG 

was that he was surprised to be asked about the WSJ matter during 

that interview; 

• that between May 9 and August 18 he did not affirmatively tell INSD 

he had authorized the disclosure; and

• that he convened the August 18 meeting with INSD to tell them he 

would not sign the SSS because, among other things, the statement in 

it denying he had authorized the disclosure was not accurate.

IV. OIG Analysis

A. Lack of Candor

We concluded that McCabe lacked candor on four separate occasions in 

connection with the disclosure to the WSJ. Three of those occasions involved his 

testimony under oath.

1. Lack of Candor with Then-Director Comey on or around 

October 31, 2016

We concluded that McCabe lacked candor during his conversation with thenDirector Comey on or about October 31, 2016, when they discussed the October 30 

WSJ article. As detailed above, Comey and McCabe gave starkly conflicting 

accounts of this conversation. Comey said that McCabe “definitely” did not tell 

Comey that he had authorized the disclosure about the PADAG call. To the 

contrary, Comey told the OIG that, on or about October 31, McCabe led him to 
23

believe “in form or fashion” that McCabe did not authorize the disclosure about the 

PADAG call to the WSJ. Comey described how McCabe gave Comey the impression 

that McCabe had not authorized the disclosure about the PADAG call, was not 

involved in the disclosure, and did not know how it happened. By contrast, McCabe 

asserted that he explicitly told Comey during that conversation that he authorized 

the disclosure and that Comey agreed it was a “good” idea.

While the only direct evidence regarding this McCabe-Comey conversation

were the recollections of the two participants, there is considerable circumstantial 

evidence and we concluded that the overwhelming weight of that evidence 

supported Comey’s version of the conversation. Indeed, none of the circumstantial

evidence provided support for McCabe’s account of the discussion; rather, we found 

that much of the available evidence undercut McCabe’s claim.8

First, Comey had pointedly refused to confirm the existence of the CF 

Investigation in testimony to Congress just 3 months earlier. Additionally, 1 month 

before McCabe authorized the disclosure, Comey also refused to confirm or deny 

two different investigations during an FBI oversight hearing before the House 

Judiciary Committee. Comey stated during the hearing: “our standard is we do not 

confirm or deny the existence of investigations.” Comey noted that there is a 

public interest exception, but “our overwhelming rule is we do not comment except 

in certain exceptional circumstances.” Comey told us that when the FBI made 

disclosures of this type during his tenure, such as occurred in connection with the 

Clinton E-mail and Russia investigations, it did so only after careful deliberations as 

to form and wording; he also noted that such a disclosure would not be made 

through an anonymously sourced quote given to a single reporter. We found it 

highly improbable that Comey would have been approving of a decision by McCabe 

to disclose to a reporter, on background, information essentially confirming the 

existence of an FBI investigation that Comey himself had refused to confirm when 

testifying before Congress.

Second, on the morning after the article appeared online (and the same day 

it appeared in print), Comey expressed concerns at his staff meeting about the 

volume of leaks, as evidenced by Special Counsel’s contemporaneous notes of the 

meeting. We found it highly unlikely that Comey, in a discussion with McCabe that 

same day, would have been accepting of a disclosure authorized by McCabe that 

looked exactly like the type of leak that he was condemning to his staff.

 8 In comments submitted by his counsel in response to a draft of this report, McCabe stated 

“there is no indication that any of Director Comey’s comments were referring to the PADAG call.” To 

the contrary, as detailed in this report and made clear in the draft that was made available for 

McCabe’s and his counsel’s review, the OIG questioned Comey with specific reference to the portion of 

the WSJ article that related to McCabe’s call on August 12 with PADAG. There is no ambiguity. 

Comey told us that, at the time, he was “very concerned” about the disclosure for a number of 

reasons, including the impact of this disclosure on FBI-DOJ relations. And Comey told us that that 

McCabe led him to believe that McCabe had nothing to do with the disclosure, “most likely” by stating 

that McCabe didn’t know where the disclosure came from, and “definitely” did not state to Comey that 

he, McCabe, authorized the disclosure.
24

Third, the disclosure occurred less than 10 days before the presidential 

election and just 2 days after the firestorm surrounding Comey’s letter to Congress 

about taking additional steps in the Clinton E-mail Investigation. Disclosure of the 

PADAG call risked subjecting the FBI to even more criticism about potentially 

affecting the imminent presidential election, by confirming the existence of a 

previously unconfirmed criminal investigation involving candidate Clinton. We 

highly doubt that Comey, who himself expressed concern to us that the WSJ 

disclosure occurred 2 days after his October 28 letter, would have countenanced 

such a disclosure by McCabe within days of the election if he had been told about it. 

Fourth, publishing the account of the PADAG call risked further “poisoning” 

the FBI’s relationship with DOJ leadership at a time it was already under great 

strain because of, among other things, Comey’s decision to notify Congress on 

October 28 that the FBI was taking additional steps in the Clinton E-mail 

Investigation and the Department leadership’s concern about leaks emanating from 

the FBI.9

Fifth, on October 27, Comey and FBI-GC expressed concerns to McCabe 

about whether McCabe should participate further in the Clinton E-mail Investigation 

because of the appearance created by the campaign contributions to his wife’s 

campaign. The same logic applied to the CF Investigation. On that same date, 

McCabe authorized Special Counsel to discuss the August 12 PADAG call with the 

WSJ reporter, thereby confirming the FBI’s criminal investigation. McCabe’s text 

message to Special Counsel late on October 27 (“no decision on recusal will be 

made until I return and weigh in”) shows that he knew the issue of recusal was 

clearly on the table; indeed, McCabe announced his recusal from both Clintonrelated matters on November 1. Under these circumstances, McCabe had a strong 

reason not to tell Comey on October 31 that he had authorized the disclosure to the 

WSJ about the CF Investigation: it would have been an admission that McCabe had 

taken action relating to that investigation at exactly the time that McCabe’s recusal 

from Clinton-related matters was under consideration by Comey. Further, we found 

it extremely unlikely, as McCabe now claims, that he not only told Comey about his 

decision to authorize the disclosure, but that Comey thought it was a “good” idea 

for McCabe to have taken that action. 

Sixth, no other senior FBI official corroborated McCabe’s testimony that, 

among FBI executive leadership, “people knew that generally” he had authorized 

the disclosure. Rather, multiple witnesses identified by McCabe told us that 

because of the information contained in the WSJ report, they did not believe it was 

an authorized disclosure. They also said that had they heard about such an 

authorization they would have recalled it because it would have been so unusual. 

Other than Special Counsel, no witness we interviewed told us that they knew that 

this disclosure had been authorized at the time. We think it likely that at least 

 9 Just a few days earlier, McCabe had participated in a conference call with then-Attorney 

General Lynch regarding leaks during which McCabe “heard her use more forceful language” than she 

had ever used at any other time.
25

some FBI executives would have been aware of McCabe’s authorization if he had 

told Comey what he had done.

Finally, Comey’s testimony that McCabe did not tell him that McCabe had 

authorized the disclosure to the WSJ is entirely consistent with McCabe’s statement 

to INSD on May 9 that he had “no idea where [the disclosure] came from” or “who 

the source was,” as well as his claim to the OIG on July 28 that he was not aware 

that Special Counsel had disclosed the information to the WSJ. Conversely, 

McCabe’s claim that he told Comey is not only inconsistent with his May 9 and July 

28 statements to the INSD and OIG, respectively, but there would be no reason for 

McCabe to not tell INSD and OIG about his actions on those dates if he had already 

admitted them to Comey. Indeed, McCabe contacted the OIG on August 1 to 

attempt to correct his July 28 testimony only after he was made aware on July 28 

that the OIG had text messages from Special Counsel that would likely enable the 

OIG to soon learn the truth about who authorized Special Counsel’s actions.10

Taking all of these factors into account, we concluded that McCabe did not 

tell Comey on or around October 31 (or at any other time) that he (McCabe) had 

authorized the disclosure of information about the CF Investigation to the WSJ. 

Had McCabe done so, we believe that Comey would have objected to the disclosure. 

McCabe’s disclosure was an attempt to make himself look good by making senior 

department leadership, specifically the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, 

look bad. While the disclosure may have served McCabe’s personal interests in 

 10 In a letter submitted by McCabe’s counsel after reviewing a draft of this report, McCabe 

argues that “the OIG should credit Mr. McCabe’s account over Director Comey’s” and complains that 

the report “paints Director Comey as a white knight carefully guarding FBI information, while 

overlooking that Mr. McCabe’s account is more credible for at least three key reasons. . . .” The first 

reason cited by McCabe as to why he should be believed over Comey is because he claims to have a 

“concrete recollection” of the conversation between the two of them on October 31, while he argues 

Comey does not. It is noteworthy that McCabe did not articulate such a “concrete recollection” during 

any of four prior interviews. That is, he did not mention it during his May 9 INSD interview, his July 

28 OIG interview, his August 1 OIG call, or his August 18 INSD interview. It was not until his 

November 29 OIG interview – McCabe’s fifth contact with INSD and the OIG about the WSJ article – 

that he first provided this “concrete recollection” of his conversation with Comey, which if true would 

have been critical for INSD and the OIG to know as soon as possible and in McCabe’s interest to share 

as soon as possible. As we note in the report, none of the circumstantial evidence supports McCabe’s 

claim, while the overwhelming weight of the circumstantial evidence support’s Comey’s recollection. 

In his submission, McCabe presented no evidence to corroborate his version of events. Instead, 

McCabe focuses entirely on attacking the credibility of Comey’s recollection. We found his “concrete 

recollection” argument without merit. The second reason cited by McCabe as to why he should be 

believed over Comey is because Comey was distracted at the time because of his need on October 31 

to deal with the Weiner laptop and Clinton E-mail Investigation issues. Given the significance of 

McCabe’s disclosure, and the potential impact it had on FBI/DOJ relations, we have little doubt that, 

no matter how focused Comey was on the Clinton E-mail Investigation or Weiner laptop issues or 

other matters, Comey would have recalled McCabe telling him that he had been the source of the 

disclosure, if in fact McCabe had told Comey the truth. Finally, McCabe argues that Comey “would 

have every incentive to distance himself from this disclosure” due to McCabe’s belief that the OIG is 

reviewing Comey’s disclosure of other information to the media. However, McCabe provides no factual 

basis for this claim and fails to address the corroborating circumstances described in the report that 

support Comey’s recollection. In the absence of any evidence supporting McCabe’s claim, we do not 

credit it. 
26

seeking to rebut the WSJ article on October 23 and to avoid another personally 

damaging WSJ story on October 30, it did so at the expense of undermining public 

confidence in the Department as a whole. We do not believe that Comey would 

have been approving of such a disclosure by McCabe if he had been told about it.

For the same reasons, we reject the suggestion that Comey simply forgot or 

misremembered what McCabe told him. If McCabe had told Comey that he had 

authorized this significant disclosure, we believe it would have surprised Comey and 

that Comey would have remembered it when the OIG interviewed him 

approximately 1 year later. Similarly, we believe the other FBI executives would 

have remembered it too had they been told about it. 

Comey did not testify that McCabe affirmatively and explicitly denied having 

authorized the disclosure, but rather that McCabe “in form or fashion” led him to 

believe that McCabe did not know how the WSJ got the account of the PADAG call, 

and “definitely didn’t tell [Comey] he authorized it.” The FBI Offense code 2.5 

(Lack of Candor – No Oath) does not require an explicit false statement to establish 

lack of candor. It applies to “the failure to be fully forthright, or the concealment or 

omission of a material fact/information.” We concluded that McCabe lacked candor 

in concealing from Comey his role in authorizing the disclosure to the WSJ.11

 11 In response to his review of a draft of this report, counsel for McCabe argued that the OIG 

failed to satisfy the elements of FBI Offense Code 2.5, because McCabe’s statements to then-Director 

Comey were part of a “casual interaction” and not as the result of “an interaction in which a supervisor 

was formally questioning an employee regarding his conduct.” We disagree. Comey’s testimony was 

that McCabe conveyed to Comey, in some form or fashion, that it was not McCabe who had disclosed 

to the WSJ the August 12 PADAG call confirming the existence of the previously unconfirmed CF 

Investigation. The OIG does not accept that the FBI’s Offense Code tolerates its Deputy Director’s 

deceptive statements to the Director on an issue of importance to the Director and the FBI because 

the Deputy Director’s lack of candor occurred in the context of a work conversation with the Director 

as opposed to “formal questioning.” In addition, although Offense Code 2.5 (Lack of Candor – No 

Oath) subjects employees to discipline for “[k]nowingly providing false information when making a 

verbal or written statement, not under oath, to a supervisor, . . . when the employee is questioned 

about his conduct or the conduct of another person,” the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility has 

previously taken the position in litigation that, “lack of candor is the generic term which has 

historically been used in FBI discipline which in its literal meaning means lack of forthrightness[.] . . . 

It can mean . . . lying to a supervisor, not under oath, about work performance.” See Ludlum v. 

Department of Justice, 278 F.3d 1280, 1284 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Compare FBI Offense Codes 2.10, 2.11 

(identifying misconduct relating to employee behavior in a formal “administrative matter,” defined to 

include “internal disciplinary investigations, OIG investigations, OPR adjudications, or EEO Matters,” as 

distinguished from the broader “question[ing] about his conduct or the conduct of another person” in 

Offense Code 2.5). Moreover, the Preamble to the FBI’s Offense Codes and Penalty Guidelines 

Governing FBI’s Internal Disciplinary Process (Preamble) indicates that the Offense Codes and Penalty 

Guidelines “provide general categories of misconduct for which employees may be disciplined” and, 

further, stresses the “heightened behavioral and managerial expectations associated with SES 

personnel.” Preamble at 2, 4. Accordingly, the OIG stands by its finding that McCabe lacked candor 

with the Director under Offense Code 2.5 and is subject to disciplinary action for such misconduct.
27

2. Lack of Candor in Interview under Oath with INSD Agents 

on May 9, 2017

We concluded that McCabe lacked candor during an INSD interview under 

oath on May 9, 2017, when he falsely told the agents that he had not authorized 

the disclosure to the WSJ and did not know who did. 

Two INSD investigators

 testified to the OIG 

that they clearly recalled McCabe telling them under oath on May 9 that he did not 

know who authorized the disclosure of the PADAG call to the WSJ. The agents said 

that they provided McCabe with a copy of the article and had him initial it, gave him 

an opportunity to read it, and then discussed it with him. According to the agents, 

McCabe told them he recalled the article, yet claimed he had “no idea where [the 

account of the PADAG call] came from” or “who the source was” for it. Moreover, 

McCabe told the agents that he had previously told others about the August 12 call 

with PADAG, leaving INSD SSA1 with the impression that INSD would “not [] get 

anywhere by asking” McCabe how many people could have known about what 

appeared to be a private conversation between him and PADAG. The agents’

recollections are corroborated by contemporaneous notes of the May 9 interview 

taken by one of the agents and by the draft SSS that INSD prepared for McCabe’s 

signature within a few days of the interview (which McCabe never signed, despite 

INSD’s repeated efforts to get him to do so). Moreover, McCabe’s denial to the 

INSD agents was consistent with his responses to the OIG during his audiorecorded July 28 interview. We found that these FBI employees – who had nothing 

to gain and everything to lose if they did anything but tell the truth regarding the

interview of the then-FBI Deputy Director – accurately and truthfully recounted the 

details of what occurred during McCabe’s May 9 interview. 

By contrast, McCabe’s account of this May 9 interview, which he provided to 

the OIG during his November 29 interview, was wholly unpersuasive. McCabe 

claimed that the INSD agents “must have” gotten it wrong when they wrote that he 

told them on May 9 that he did not authorize the conversation and that he did not 

know who the source was. Although McCabe said he did not believe that he denied 

authorizing the disclosure of the PADAG call during the interview, he could not 

provide any alternative account about what he actually said. Rather, McCabe 

stated that he could not remember what he told the INSD investigators. McCabe

did not question the competence or good faith of the INSD interviewers, and also 

admitted that he could not explain why the investigators got the impression that 

McCabe had told them the WSJ article was an unauthorized leak.12

 12 In a letter submitted by his counsel after reviewing a draft of this report, McCabe offers as 

an explanation for the inconsistent accounts of McCabe and the INSD agents that he was confused 

about what portion of the October 30 article he was being asked about, citing numerous other facts 

and quotes from anonymous FBI sources regarding the CF Investigation in the October 30 WSJ article. 

The investigative record is clear as to the portion of the WSJ article about which the INSD agents were 

questioning McCabe. According to INSD SSA 1’s contemporaneous notes and testimony to the OIG, 

INSD specifically drew McCabe’s attention to the portion of the October 30 WSJ article regarding the 
28

However, in an apparent effort to provide an excuse for his untruthful 

responses to INSD, McCabe sought to portray the discussion about the October 30 

article as essentially an afterthought by the agents. We found his description of the 

circumstances surrounding the interview to be demonstrably false. First, INSDSection Chief flatly contradicted McCabe’s claim that, at the end of an unrelated

meeting, as the agents were walking out of his office, one of them (INSD-Section 

Chief) pulled McCabe aside and asked him a question or two about the October 30 

article. Second, INSD-SSA1’s two and half pages of notes of the meeting reflected

that a significant portion of the interview related specifically to the account of the 

PADAG call that appeared in the October 30 article. Third, the agent that took the 

notes (INSD-SSA1) was not the agent (INSD-Section Chief) that McCabe claimed 

pulled him aside. Indeed, McCabe said that INSD-SSA1 and INSD-SSA2 (who did 

not attend the May 9 interview) were in the hallway outside of his office when he 

contends that INSD-Section Chief asked him about the disclosure of the PADAG call 

in the October 30 article, circumstances that INSD-Section Chief denied. Fourth, 

McCabe acknowledged that his initials were on a copy of the October 30 article that 

the agents gave him to review, as reflected in INSD-SSA1’s notes.13

We also considered whether McCabe simply forgot that he had authorized the 

WSJ disclosure at the time of his May 9 INSD interview, and therefore made an 

honest mistake in telling INSD he did not know who did it. In three interviews 

under oath, including one with outside counsel, McCabe has never made this claim 

of a failed memory, and in any event we did not find this to be a persuasive 

explanation for his inaccurate statement given McCabe’s other admissions. 

First, McCabe acknowledged that the PADAG call was a very memorable 

event in McCabe’s career. It involved a dramatic confrontation between McCabe 

and the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, one of the highest ranking 

officials in the Department. McCabe told the OIG that, despite his long career in 

the FBI, he had never had a conversation “like this one” with a high level 

Department of Justice official before or since August 12, 2016.

Second, McCabe told us this was the one and only time in his career that he 

authorized a disclosure to the media of an internal discussion with such a high level 

Department official.

Third, McCabe was deeply involved in the disclosure by Special Counsel to 

Barrett; this was not a fleeting event but rather one that McCabe was involved in 

for the entire week. McCabe learned by October 25 about Barrett’s intention to 

write about the CF Investigation. By October 27, McCabe had authorized Special 

 

August 12 PADAG call. SSA 1’s testimony was further corroborated by INSD Section Chief who also 

noted that McCabe said he was disappointed that his conversation with the PADAG had appeared in 

the October 30 WSJ article. In addition, the draft SSS that the INSD agents sent to McCabe on May 

12 stated that McCabe was “requested to evaluate and assess the content and accuracy of the first 

three paragraphs appearing on the last page” of the copy that McCabe acknowledged contained his 

initials, which was the portion of the article addressing the August 12 PADAG call. 

13 McCabe erroneously testified that INSD-SSA2 was present at the May 9 interview, but 

was not.
29

Counsel and AD/OPA to discuss the investigation with Barrett. McCabe then closely 

followed the progress of their discussions, including having a 51 minute call with

Special Counsel on October 27 between Special Counsel’s first and second calls that 

day with Barrett. McCabe also had conversations with Special Counsel on October 

28 close in time to her call with Barrett that day. Then, on October 30, the day the 

article appeared, McCabe called both NY-ADIC and W-ADIC to admonish them for

the leaks that appeared in the article. The next day, October 31, McCabe had a 

conversation with Comey about the article. Finally, on November 4, the day after 

another WSJ article concerning the CF Investigation, which again included 

information about the McCabe-PADAG call, McCabe again admonished NY-ADIC for 

leaks in that article.

Fourth, McCabe viewed the allegations that the WSJ reporter had told Special 

Counsel and AD/OPA that he would be writing about in the October 30 article as 

“incredibly damaging” to the credibility of the FBI, as well as an attack on his own 

integrity. The October 30 WSJ article challenged McCabe’s leadership of the FBI

directly and personally, specifically his oversight of the CF Investigation. We do not 

believe McCabe would have forgotten his own actions taken in connection with the 

publication of an article that was as memorable and personal as this one. 

Fifth, McCabe acknowledged that INSD showed him the October 30 WSJ 

article at the outset of the discussion and gave him an opportunity to read it, and 

that he initialed the article and told the agents that he remembered it. 

In light of the above circumstances, it seems highly implausible that McCabe 

forgot in May what he recalled in detail during his November OIG testimony: that 

he made an active choice to authorize Special Counsel and AD/OPA to disclose the 

PADAG call as the “best evidence” to rebut the assertion that McCabe and the FBI 

ordered the termination of a criminal investigation due to Department of Justice 

pressure. We therefore concluded that when McCabe told INSD in May that he did 

not know who authorized the disclosure to the WSJ, it was not due to a lack of 

memory. In our view, the evidence is substantial that it was done knowingly and 

intentionally. 

For these reasons, we concluded that McCabe violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 

(Lack of Candor – Under Oath) when he falsely told INSD agents on May 9, 2017, 

that he did not know who authorized the disclosure of the PADAG call to the WSJ.

3. Lack of Candor in Interview under Oath with OIG 

Investigators on July 28, 2017

We concluded that McCabe lacked candor during his OIG audio-recorded 

interview under oath on July 28, 2017, when he falsely stated that: (a) he was not 

aware of Special Counsel being authorized to speak to reporters around October 30

and (b) he did not know, because he was out of town, “where [Special Counsel] 

was or what she was doing” during the relevant time period. 

First, with regard to McCabe’s claim that he was not aware of Special Counsel

being authorized to speak to reporters around October 30, that claim was 
30

essentially the same false denial that McCabe made to the two INSD agents on May 

9, except this time the false denial was made in an audio-recorded interview. Thus, 

McCabe cannot deny that he made the statement, as he has attempted to do with 

regard to his May 9 response to INSD agents. Instead, McCabe asserted in his 

November 29 OIG interview that he “misspoke” during the July 28 interview 

because he was surprised by the topic being raised during that interview and had 

not thought about the October 30 article in “quite a long time.” However, McCabe 

was shown the article and asked questions about it less than 3 months earlier in the 

May 9 INSD interview. Moreover, in neither the OIG July interview nor the May 9 

INSD interview did McCabe indicate that he lacked recollection or needed more time 

to think about the matter. As Deputy Director, McCabe well knew the significance 

of OIG and INSD investigations, and of the importance of being truthful when 

questioned under oath by agents from those Offices. Moreover, McCabe was a 

trained law enforcement officer with roughly 20 years of law enforcement 

experience. On this record, we do not credit his claim that his unequivocal denials 

under oath, on two occasions within 3 months of one another, were the result of 

being surprised by the questions. 

Second, with regard to McCabe’s claim that he did not know where Special 

Counsel was or what she was doing during the relevant time period, FBI records 

show that McCabe was in frequent telephone and text communication with Special 

Counsel during that time period and had several communications with her regarding 

her calls with Barrett, including a 51 minute call after her first call with Barrett and 

a 23 minute call after her final call with Barrett. McCabe’s own text messages 

reflect that McCabe was keenly interested to learn about the results of Special 

Counsel’s calls with Barrett. We therefore found that McCabe’s claimed ignorance 

regarding Special Counsel’s activities on those days was demonstrably false.

For these reasons, we concluded that McCabe violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 

(Lack of Candor – Under Oath) when he falsely told the OIG on July 28, 2017, that: 

(a) he was not aware of Special Counsel being authorized to talk to reporters and 

(b) he did not know what Special Counsel was doing at the relevant time because 

he was out of town.14 In reaching this conclusion, we took note of the fact that

 14 In response to review a draft of this report, counsel for McCabe argued that, in asking 

McCabe about the October 27-30 texts between Special Counsel and DAD regarding the WSJ article, 

the OIG engaged in improper and unethical conduct, and violated an allegedly explicit agreement with 

McCabe that when he was interviewed by the OIG on July 28 he would not be questioned outside the 

presence of counsel with respect to matters for which he was being investigated. McCabe provides no 

evidence in support of his claim, and based on the OIG’s review of the available evidence, including 

the transcript of McCabe’s recorded OIG interview on July 28 and the OIG’s contemporaneous notes, 

as described below, McCabe’s claim is contradicted by the investigative record. 

As an initial matter, at the time of the July 28 interview, McCabe was not a subject of an OIG 

investigation of disclosures in the October 30 WSJ article, nor did the OIG suspect him of having been 

the source of an unauthorized disclosure of non-public information related to that article. The OIG did 

not open its investigation of McCabe concerning the WSJ article until August 31, after being informed 

by INSD that McCabe had provided INSD agents with information on August 18, 2017, that 

contradicted the information that he had provided to INSD agents on May 9. 

Second, the OIG has no record that McCabe stated in advance of the July 28 interview that he 

was represented by counsel. Moreover, the recording of the July 28 interview shows that at no time 
31

McCabe called the OIG 4 days later, on August 1, and indicated that he had been 

thinking about the questions he had been asked and believed that he may have 

authorized Special Counsel to work with AD/OPA and Barrett on the follow-up WSJ 

article. McCabe’s call to the OIG on August 1 to attempt to correct his prior false 

testimony to the OIG was the appropriate course for him to take, and was a 

potentially mitigating factor in this misconduct. However, as detailed in the next 

section, we found that when McCabe was given the opportunity during his 

November 29 OIG interview to address and acknowledge his prior false statements 

to the INSD and the OIG, McCabe made additional false statements. Under these 

circumstances, we concluded that McCabe’s August 1 call to the OIG does not alter 

our factual determination that his sworn testimony on July 28 lacked candor. 

4. Lack of Candor in Interview under Oath with OIG 

Investigators on November 29, 2017

We concluded that McCabe lacked candor during an OIG interview under oath 

on November 29, 2017, when he falsely told the OIG in a recorded interview that: 

(a) he told Comey on October 31, 2016, that he (McCabe) had authorized the 

disclosure to the WSJ and that Comey agreed it was a “good” idea; (b) he did not 

deny to the INSD agents on May 9 that he had authorized the disclosure to the 

WSJ; and (c) the May 9 INSD interview occurred at the end of an unrelated meeting 

 

did McCabe give any indication that he was represented by counsel. The transcript of the interview 

shows that the OIG informed McCabe, who has a law degree, that the interview was about “issues 

raised by the text messages” between Special Counsel and DAD, and that the OIG would not be 

asking McCabe questions about “other issues related to your recusal in the McAulliffe investigation . . . 

or any issues related to that.” McCabe responded “Okay” and did not articulate or request any further 

limitations on the questions he would answer. The OIG added that “This is a voluntary interview. 

What that means is that if you don’t want to answer a question, that’s fully within your rights.” That 

“will not be held against you . . . .” The recording of McCabe’s interview further demonstrates that the 

OIG was entirely solicitous of McCabe’s requests not to respond to certain questions. Towards the end 

of the interview, before beginning an area of questioning unrelated to Special Counsel/DAD texts or 

the WSJ article, the OIG prefaced his question to McCabe by stating “if you feel this is connected to 

the things that are making you uncomfortable, will you let me know?” McCabe responded, “Yes. 

Yeah, you can ask, I'll let you . . . If I don't feel comfortable going forward, I'll let you know.” At a 

later point in the interview, after answering a number of questions unrelated to Special Counsel/DAD 

texts, McCabe expressed a preference for not answering further questions, and the OIG did not ask 

further questions on the topic. 

Third, McCabe’s submission mischaracterizes an October 4, 2017, email exchange with the 

OIG as evidencing that at the time of McCabe’s July 28 OIG interview, McCabe was the subject of an 

OIG leak investigation. As noted above, the OIG did not know about McCabe’s involvement in the 

disclosure to the WSJ at the time of the July 28 interview, and only opened an investigation into his 

actions related to that disclosure on August 31, 2017, after the lack of candor referral to the OIG by 

INSD. 

Lastly, despite having been questioned at length by the OIG on November 29, 2017, about the 

reasons for his false statements to the OIG on July 28, McCabe never once raised any of these issues. 

Moreover, the same counsel who submitted on behalf of McCabe these accusations of impropriety by 

the OIG was present for the entire OIG interview on November 29 yet never once raised any of these 

issues. McCabe had every incentive to raise these issues as early as possible, and surely on 

November 29, when he was represented by counsel and was asked pointed questions by the OIG 

about his July 28 testimony denying that Special Counsel had been authorized to speak to reporters 

during that time period. McCabe did not do so until nearly 7 months after the July 28 interview and 

nearly 3 months after the November 29 interview. 
32

when one of the INSD agents pulled him aside and asked him one or two questions 

about the October 30 article. 

First, with regard to his claim of having told Comey that he had authorized 

the disclosure, Comey stated precisely the opposite in his OIG interview, and the 

chronology and circumstances then existing (as described above) make it 

extraordinarily unlikely that McCabe did so and that Comey would simply have 

agreed after the fact with McCabe’s disclosure and thought it was a good idea. As 

detailed above, the overwhelming weight of evidence supported Comey’s version of 

the conversation and not McCabe’s. 

Second, with regard to McCabe’s claim that he did not deny authorizing the 

disclosure to the WSJ during the May 9 INSD interview, as noted previously the 

testimony of the INSD agents, the contemporaneous notes of the interview, the 

draft Signed Sworn Statement prepared 3 days later, and the similar false 

statements made by McCabe to the OIG on July 28 wholly undercut the contention 

by McCabe to the OIG on November 29. 

Third, as explained above in Section A.2., we found that McCabe’s description 

of the May 9 INSD interview about the October 30 WSJ article as essentially an 

afterthought, involving only a question or two from one of the INSD agents as the 

meeting was ending, was demonstrably false.

As such, we concluded that McCabe’s testimony to the OIG lacked candor 

and violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor- Under Oath) when he falsely 

testified on November 29, 2017, that: (a) he told Comey on October 31, 2016, 

that he (McCabe) had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ and that Comey agreed 

it was a “good” idea; (b) he did not deny to the INSD agents on May 9 that he had 

authorized the disclosure to the WSJ; and (c) the May 9 INSD interview occurred at 

the end of an unrelated meeting when one of the INSD agents pulled him aside and 

asked him one or two questions about the October 30 article.

B. Media Policies

As the FBI’s Deputy Director, McCabe was authorized to disclose the 

existence of the CF Investigation if the “public interest” exception found in Section 

3.4 of the FBI’s then-existing Policy on Media Relations applied. Similarly, the 

Department’s U.S. Attorneys’ Manual included a public interest exception to the 

general prohibition on disclosing information about an ongoing criminal 

investigation. However, we concluded that McCabe’s decision to confirm the 

existence of the CF Investigation through an anonymously sourced quote, 

recounting the content of a phone call with a senior Department official in a manner 

designed to advance his personal interests, was clearly not within the public 

interest exception. We therefore concluded that McCabe’s disclosure of the 

existence of an ongoing investigation in this manner violated the FBI’s and the 

Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.

As an initial matter, we found entirely unpersuasive McCabe’s claim to us 

that he did not view the disclosure to the WSJ about the PADAG call as disclosing 
33

the existence of the CF Investigation, and that therefore the FBI’s prohibitions on 

commenting about a case did not apply. He asserted that was not the purpose of 

the disclosure and “there really wasn’t any discussion of the case, of the merits of 

the case, the targets and subjects of the case, so I did not see it as a disclosure 

about the Clinton Foundation case.” We found this explanation lacking in 

credibility. The sole purpose for authorizing Special Counsel’s and AD/OPA’s 

disclosure about the August 12 PADAG conversation was to make the point that 

McCabe had stood up to the Department so that the FBI could continue to pursue 

its “validly predicated” CF Investigation. The only possible conclusion that anyone 

could take from such a disclosure was confirmation that the FBI was conducting a 

CF Investigation, a fact Comey had pointedly refused to confirm in public testimony 

several months earlier. McCabe himself acknowledged in his OIG testimony that his 

authorization of the disclosure of the PADAG call “clearly creates” the effect of 

confirming the existence of the CF Investigation. We therefore concluded that FBI 

and Department policies were plainly applicable to the disclosure.

In our view, McCabe’s best argument that his decision to disclose the August 

12 conversation was at least arguably consistent with the public interest exception 

in the FBI and Department policies is that it was in the public interest for the FBI to 

rebut the allegation, from unnamed sources, that FBI leadership had shut down or 

suppressed the CF Investigation because of improper pressure from the 

Department. This allegation was described by the WSJ reporter to Special Counsel

and AD/OPA in the October 27 call and was ultimately reported in the October 30 

WSJ article and in other press accounts.15 However, the manner in which McCabe 

addressed the anonymous allegations about the FBI’s and the Department’s 

handling of the CF Investigation reflected that McCabe was motivated to defend his 

integrity and objectivity in relation to the CF Investigation, which had been called 

into question, and not to advance any public interest.

Had McCabe’s primary concern actually been to reassure the public that the 

FBI was pursuing the CF Investigation despite the anonymous claims in the article, 

the way that the FBI and the Department would usually accomplish that goal is 

through a public statement reassuring the public that the FBI is investigating the

matter. Of course, that would have required McCabe to alert Comey to the 

reporter’s inquiry and to defer to Comey’s and the Department’s judgment as to 

whether the “public interest” exception applied and, even if it did, whether any such 

statement would be appropriate within days of the election.16 McCabe did not 

follow that course. Instead, McCabe, without consulting Comey, authorized 

disclosure of the PADAG call on background to one news organization that was 

 15 See, e.g., FBI Agents Pressed Unsuccessfully for Probe of Clinton Foundation, Washington 

Post (Oct 30, 2016).

16 Moreover, had McCabe raised the issue with Comey at that time, we believe the same 

considerations that led Comey to exclude McCabe from the October 27 telephone call, and to McCabe’s 

formal recusal on November 1 from the CF Investigation, would have caused Comey to prohibit 

McCabe from participating in any such discussions. Indeed, as discussed above, FBI-GC stated that, 

had McCabe conferred with him on this matter, he would have counseled McCabe to avoid anything 

related to the CF Investigation, including authorizing disclosures to the press, given FBI-GC’s and 

Comey’s pending concerns about McCabe’s potential appearance issues on Clinton-related matters. 
34

directed primarily at enhancing McCabe’s reputation at the expense of PADAG. 

Rather than reassuring the public, the disclosure led to further questions about 

leaks emanating from the FBI within days of an election, was part of a WSJ story 

that was predictably headlined, “FBI, Justice Feud in Clinton Probe,” and resulted in 

another WSJ article on November 3.

In his testimony to the OIG, Comey disputed the notion that this disclosure 

was “in the best interest of the FBI.” Comey acknowledged that one could argue 

that the disclosure shows that FBI leadership “is battling the pencil-pushing 

bureaucrats across the street [at Main Justice]” and “trying to do the right thing by 

way of the investigators in New York and Andy [McCabe] is their champion,” but 

Comey said he “wouldn’t have bought this argument” because it is outweighed by 

the fact that the disclosure would confirm the existence of a criminal investigation 

and harm FBI-DOJ relations. Likewise, FBI-GC told us that the problem with the 

disclosure was that “to put it bluntly, it throws DOJ under the bus,” while 

accomplishing very little in terms of countering the narrative that the FBI was 

politically motivated. In FBI-GC’s view, disclosure of this single conversation 

amounted to “a lower level effort to influence the narrative when the narrative is at 

a much higher level and going at a trajectory that it was not possible to change 

through something like this.”

The FBI senior executives we interviewed suspected that this disclosure was 

an unauthorized leak because it disclosed a high-level conversation that appeared 

to serve McCabe at the expense of making DOJ look bad. As McCabe’s own Chief of 

Staff stated:

I just can't imagine that the Deputy would have authorized the leak. 

It just doesn't seem to serve, I mean, I guess it serves, it serves the 

purpose of the Deputy by saying, hey look, do you want us to shut this 

thing down? I guess it serves Andy in that way, but it really, it really 

highlights a dysfunction between the FBI and the, and DOJ. And to 

that end, it doesn't really serve the greater good. 

We also found that McCabe’s actions contemporaneous with the disclosure in 

October 2016, as well as those following it, reflected an understanding by McCabe 

that his authorization of the disclosure was not consistent with FBI policy. For 

example, on October 30 and November 4, following publication of the WSJ articles 

referencing his authorized disclosure about the PADAG conversation, McCabe called 

the NY-ADIC to complain about the CF Investigation leaks contained in those 

stories, without mentioning that he had authorized an anonymous disclosure 

rebutting the leaks and confirming the CF Investigation. Then, when questioned 

about the disclosure by INSD agents in May 2017, McCabe issued false denials 

regarding his involvement in it. Further, after it became apparent that the OIG 

knew about his role in the disclosure, McCabe sought to legitimize his actions by 

falsely claiming that he had told Comey that he authorized the disclosure and that 

Comey was fine with his decision.

We are mindful that McCabe was responding to anonymous, unauthorized 

leaks about the CF Investigation that may have originated from current or former 
35

FBI agents. However, ongoing, non-public FBI investigations are sometimes the 

subject of media reports, yet the FBI’s official response to such reports is typically 

to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of the investigation, as then-Director 

Comey did in his July Congressional testimony. Moreover, the FBI never officially 

confirms the existence of an ongoing criminal investigation through an 

anonymously quoted source. We concluded that McCabe’s decision to confirm the 

existence of the CF Investigation through an anonymously sourced quote in the 

WSJ, recounting the content of a telephone conversation between him and a 

Department official, served only to advance McCabe’s personal interests and not the 

public interest, as required by FBI policy. We therefore found that his actions 

violated applicable FBI and Department policies and constituted misconduct.17

C. Conclusion

As detailed in this report, the OIG found that then-Deputy Director Andrew 

McCabe lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection 

with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the WSJ, and that this 

conduct violated FBI Offense Codes 2.5 and 2.6. The OIG also concluded that 

McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in the manner 

described in this report violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and 

constituted misconduct.

The OIG is issuing this report to the FBI for such action that it deems to be 

appropriate. 

 17 We note also that section 1-7.530 of the USAM required McCabe to “consult and obtain 

approval from the United States Attorney or Department Division handling the matter prior to 

disseminating any information to the media.” Because we concluded that the disclosure was not 

authorized by FBI and Department policies, we did not need to assess how this specific USAM 

provision impacted McCabe’s action.
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