Grassley promises hearings into McCabe’s firing once inspector general’s report is public

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee pledged Monday to hold hearings on what led to the firing of former deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe — but only after the inspector general’s report on him is publicly released.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sent senior panel Democrat Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) a letter in which he promised that “you can be certain that this Committee will hold hearings” on the inspector general’s report “once they become available.” But Grassley did not commit to bringing in Attorney General Jeff Sessions for questioning — as some Republican panel members, including Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.), have said he should do. A spokesman for Grassley said Monday that the panel would have to review the inspector general’s report before determining a witness list.

Over the weekend, Leahy publicly released a letter he penned to Grassley on Jan. 30, urging the chairman to hold a hearing “at a minimum” with FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and the “recently departed” McCabe — who had stepped down from his position the day before, though he had not officially left the bureau. McCabe was fired just 26 hours shy of the date when he would have been eligible to retire with a full pension.

“Chuck, it is serious,” Leahy added in a handwritten note on his Jan. 30 letter to Grassley.

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On Sunday, Graham endorsed the call for a hearing to examine Sessions’s decision to fire McCabe, saying on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “we owe it to the average American to have a hearing . . . where Mr. Sessions, Attorney General Sessions, comes forward with whatever documentation he has about the firing, and gives Mr. McCabe a chance to defend himself.”

On Monday, Cornyn said that he thought it would be “good” to hold a hearing on McCabe’s firing and that he would like to review the inspector general’s report that precipitated the dismissal. That report has not yet been released to the public, though Sessions fired McCabe last week, two days after the FBI’s disciplinary office recommended terminating his employment for “an unauthorized disclosure to the news media” and because he “lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.