Grassley suggests deputy FBI director may have violated Hatch Act

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is raising questions about whether FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe violated a law barring federal officials from using their offices to campaign for or against political candidates.

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday, Grassley suggested that McCabe may have used his government email account to advocate for his wife Jill McCabe’s 2015 Virginia state Senate campaign.

Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that could constitute a violation of the Hatch Act, pointing to Justice Department guidance forbidding employees from using “any e-mail account or social media to distribute, send or forward content that advocates for or against a partisan political party.”

{mosads}

“However, the e-mail communications released by the FBI show that Mr. McCabe did precisely that during his wife’s Virginia Senate campaign,” Grassley wrote.

“For instance, in an August 19, 2015, e-mail from his FBI e-mail account to an undisclosed recipient, he wrote: ‘Jill has been busy as hell since she decided to run for VA state senate (long story). Check her out on Facebook as Dr. Jill McCabe for Senate.'”

Grassley has long pursued McCabe for possible conflicts of interest. In another letter to Rosenstein earlier this year, Grassley called McCabe’s independence into question while he was serving as the FBI’s acting director.