Rep. John Ratcliffe: The DOJ ‘is going to have to indict Andrew McCabe’

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) believes the justice system could soon get a reputation for setting “separate standards” for government officials on opposite sides of the political aisle — and according to him, there’s only one way to ensure that doesn’t happen: indict Andrew McCabe.

In an interview on Sunday Morning Futures with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, Ratcliffe contrasted the way the former deputy FBI director has been treated with the experiences of former National Security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos before asserting that “the Department of Justice is going to have to indict Andrew McCabe,” The Washington Examiner reports.

Double standards

“The Department of Justice has, through the special counsel, recently made a cottage industry out of charging people like General Flynn and George Papadopoulos for lying to investigators,” Ratcliffe, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, lamented on Sunday. “I think that the Department of Justice is going to have to indict Andy McCabe simply because to do otherwise would be to admit that there are separate standards for the people doing the same thing, for the same conduct.”

Indeed, in a 2017 plea agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller, Flynn pleaded guilty to “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to FBI agents about his interactions with a Russian ambassador, according to NBC News.

However, Flynn wasn’t told that he should have a lawyer present during the meeting, according to Fox, and he has since alleged that McCabe actively pushed him not to. In addition, no recording was made of Flynn’s statements; rather, they were compiled into an FD-302 report by disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok.

Strzok was later discovered to have sent hundreds of anti-Trump text messages to his lover, Justice Department lawyer Lisa Page, including ones that referred to “an insurance policy” against a Trump presidency.

For his part, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators, although he now argues that he was entrapped. Papadopoulos paid a fine of over $9,000 and served 12 days of a 14-day prison sentence.

Preferential treatment?

But McCabe has faced no such recourse, even after a February 2018 report from the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that the former deputy director helped leak unauthorized information about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton to the press, and then misled investigators about it — repeatedly.

He was subsequently fired by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who accused McCabe of making “an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and [lacking] candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.” But he hasn’t yet faced charges for his actions — unlike Flynn and Papadopoulos.

“I don’t know how you can’t indict [McCabe] when he is engaged in the same conduct that other people have recently been charged for at the Department of Justice, particularly when your own watchdog says that those lies were done intentionally and knowingly and done repeatedly,” Ratcliffe said. “You can’t really tell the public, ‘Look, we’re [going to] treat people differently, with different standards, for the same conduct.'”

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For his part, McCabe has filed a lawsuit against the federal government alleging that he lost his job because of political targeting by President Donald Trump. He has also taken a position as a contributor for CNN since leaving Washington.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported late last month that the DOJ is close to making a decision on whether McCabe will be indicted. And that can’t come soon enough.