RUTHFULLY YOURS

Former CIA director John Brennan issued a stinging rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s Thursday tweet celebrating the dismissal of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.

Brennan, who led the CIA under President Barack Obama, referred to Trump as a “demagogue” and hinted that damning evidence of “political corruption” would eventually emerge.
John O. Brennan
✔ @JohnBrennan When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/974859881827258369 …

Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe Friday, threatening a pension the career agent would have received if he was allowed to retire on Sunday as he intended. Sessions cited McCabe’s lack of “candor” during interviews related to contacts he and his staff had with a reporter.Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, publicly called for the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation Saturday morning, following Trump’s tweet. This prompted backlash from Democrats, who insisted Mueller must be allowed to continue his investigation unimpeded.

The Labor Department under Tom Perez usurped the SEC and wrote a rule that ignored that prohibition. Mr. Perez essentially rewrote the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (Erisa), which regulates employer- and union-sponsored plans differently from individual retirement accounts. For instance, individuals are allowed to sue fiduciaries of employer and union plans for charging a commission. Labor applied the more rigorous protections for employer and union plans to IRAs.

Mr. Perez also extended Erisa’s definition of “investment advice fiduciaries,” who provide advice “on a regular basis,” to broker-dealers and financial-insurance agents who merely sell a product. “Transforming sales pitches into the recommendations of a trusted adviser mixes apples and oranges,” Judge Edith Jones wrote for the 2-1 majority.

This created a Catch-22. “Thousands of brokers and insurance agents who deal with IRA investors must either forgo commission based transactions and move to fees for account management or accept the burdensome regulations and heightened lawsuit exposure required by the [best interest contract exemption] contract provisions,” Judge Jones explained.

The effect is to raise costs for small savers, many of whom will have to turn to robo-advice. Several firms including MetLife , AIG and Merrill Lynch have already withdrawn from segments of the brokerage and retirement market.

The Trump Labor Department has said it won’t enforce the rule and is working with the SEC on a new one that applies to all brokerage firms and investment advisers. The Fifth Circuit ruling will make this task easier. This is good news for retirement investors and the rule of law.

For a microcosm of the current madness of American politics, look no further than the weekend meltdown after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe late Friday.

Mr. Sessions acted on a recommendation by the FBI’s own Office of Professional Responsibility, but Democrats and the media ignored that and called the firing part of Donald Trump’s plot to undermine the FBI and steal American democracy. Mr. Trump then seemingly tried to confirm the accusations with a Twitter fusillade hailing Mr. McCabe’s firing and escalating without cause to attack special counsel Robert Mueller. Which triggered another round of claims that Mr. Trump’s days in office are numbered, or should be.

As Mr. Trump and his antagonists drive each other insane, it’s hard to keep your eye on what matters. Start with the obligation of FBI agents to tell the truth. Mr. Sessions’s statement was a straightforward explanation that he fired Mr. McCabe for a serious violation of duty.

The Justice Department’s Inspector General has been examining the department’s handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server—a probe demanded by Democrats on grounds that former FBI Director James Comey’s 2016 intervention cost her the election. The IG uncovered “allegations of misconduct” by Mr. McCabe, Mr. Sessions’s statement said, which it forwarded to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) that is composed of career officials.

Mr. Sessions added that both the IG and OPR reports “concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor—including under oath—on multiple conclusions. The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and accountability. As the OPR proposal stated, ‘all FBI employees know that lacking candor under oath results in dismissal and that our integrity is our brand.’”

Following his termination late Friday night, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe declared that he was “singled out” after “unrelenting” attacks by President Trump and critics. McCabe’s objections are less than credible, given the virtually unprecedented recommendation of career officials to fire the one-time acting FBI director.

However, McCabe may have rectified his “singled out” status with his long statement criticizing his termination: In the middle of it is a line that could be viewed as incriminating fired FBI director James Comey, not just in leaking sensitive information but also in lying to Congress.

McCabe is accused of misleading investigators about allegedly giving information to a former Wall Street Journal reporter about the investigation of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton family’s charitable foundation. McCabe asserts in his post-firing statement that he not only had authority to “share” that information to the media but did so with the knowledge of “the director.” The FBI director at the time was Comey.
“I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor,” McCabe stated. “As deputy director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter.”

If the “interaction” means leaking the information, then McCabe’s statement would seem to directly contradict statements Comey made in a May 2017 congressional hearing. Asked if he had “ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation” or whether he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation,” Comey replied “never” and “no.”