McCabe Oversaw Criminal Probe of Sessions Nearly a Year Before Firing: Report

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly “oversaw a federal criminal investigation” into whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions lacked candor in his testimony to Congress about his contacts with Russian operatives, according to ABC News. The probe was launched nearly a year before McCabe was fired. One source claimed that Sessions was “not aware of the investigation when he decided to fire McCabe last Friday.” Sessions’ lawyer declined to confirm that to the network. Several Democratic and Republican lawmakers were made aware of the Sessions probe last year in a closed-door briefing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and McCabe. Sources told ABC News that McCabe authorized the inquiry into Sessions after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and then-Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) wrote a letter to the Bureau in March 2017 “urging agents to investigate ‘all contacts’ Sessions may have had with Russians, and ‘whether any laws were broken in the course of those contacts or in any subsequent discussion of whether they occurred.’”