The McCabe-Flynn Double Standard One is treated as an anti-Trump martyr, the other as a pariah.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mccabe-flynn-double-standard-1522106424
Double standards are a way of life in Washington, but they can still manage to take you aback. Witness the different standards applied to the recent punishments of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Mr. McCabe on March 16, acting on the recommendation of career employees in the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility. That followed Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s finding that Mr. McCabe made an unauthorized disclosure to the media about the Hillary Clinton server investigation, but more importantly lacked candor under oath with internal investigators.
Democrats and various media voices described the McCabe firing as vindictive, because it disqualified the former agency No. 2 for early retirement benefits and came amid Donald Trump’s crass attacks on Mr. McCabe.
On Friday Mr. McCabe defended his conduct in the Washington Post. “Amid the chaos that surrounded me,” Mr. McCabe wrote, “I answered questions as completely and accurately as I could. And when I realized that some of my answers were not fully accurate or may have been misunderstood, I took the initiative to correct them.” He says he “may well have been confused and distracted.”
The country will have to wait for Inspector General Horowitz’s report to judge this claim. What we do know is that federal law has a policy of zero tolerance toward anyone who makes false statements to the FBI—a felony charge with up to a five-year prison sentence. Presumably the critics would have preferred the Attorney General to hold Mr. McCabe to a lower standard than that for average citizens.
Compare the conventional wisdom after the McCabe firing to its efficient disposal of Michael Flynn. In January 2017, Mr. Flynn denied to the FBI that he had discussed Obama-era sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak prior to Mr. Trump’s inauguration. As incoming National Security Adviser, Mr. Flynn would have known the government was monitoring Mr. Kislyak’s phone, which makes it unlikely he’d intentionally lie.
He agreed to talk to the FBI’s agents with no counsel present. And in March 2017 former FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee that the two agents who interviewed Mr. Flynn concluded he hadn’t lied but had forgotten exactly what he’d discussed.
Still, what he told the FBI was false, and in December Special Counsel Robert Mueller extracted a guilty plea from Mr. Flynn on the charge of lying to the FBI. There is reason to believe Mr. Flynn took the deal to end the threat of financial ruin, or the prosecution of his son, Michael, Jr. Be that as it may, it’s hard not to notice that in what is considered polite Washington society today, Mr. McCabe has been elevated as a martyr to the anti-Trump cause, while Mr. Flynn’s fall is necessary justice.
No one knows where the Mueller investigation is going to end up. But the country would be better able to absorb the result if it believed that Washington was playing it straight, and not playing favorites.
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