Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe texted several times during the 2016 election about anti-Trump stories in the news media, according to new messages released by Senate investigators that show the bureau brass was on a first-name basis with reporters driving the now-discredited Russia collusion narrative
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a new letter to FBI Director Chris Wray they just got the text messages from a subpoena two months ago, accusing the bureau of withholding far more information about the 2016 election just three weeks before Election Day 2020.
"It is simply unacceptable that we have waited so long to receive so little," the senators wrote in a letter Monday. "The 24 pages of McCabe text messages that the FBI did produce include notable information that is highly relevant to several aspects of the Committees' oversight efforts."
The letter reveals some of the first text messages that were exchanged during the Russia probe between McCabe and Lisa Page, an ex-FBI counsel who was assigned to the deputy director. The texts, disclosed in the letter, show several conversations about leaked stories unfavorable to Trump on the now-discredited Russia collusion probe.
For instance, Page alerted McCabe to an Oct. 31, 2016 story in Slate magazine suggesting there was a secret communications channel between Trump and Vladimir Putin at the Alfa Bank. The FBI, special counsel Robert Mueller and a British court have all dismissed that allegation as an unproven conspiracy theory. Here's the exchange:
Page: "Christ. A LOT of articles tonight. MJ published, lots about MYE, and an allegation about a PI on Manafort."
McCabe: "MJ? Kelly File was really rough on me."
Page: "Mother Jones. Re western intel source reporting on trump. … I didn't watch. … It's the first time you've really come up since last sunday. Thought Devlin's piece was pretty benign."
Page: "And the alphabank(sic) story is in slate."
McCabe: "Awesome."
The fact that McCabe appeared to be applauding a now-disproven anti-Trump story a week before Election Day 2016 has caught Senate investigators' attention.
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Too big to jail
He need to be in jail