In an appearance on Fox News‘ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) told host Maria Bartiromo he sees an indictment for fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on charges of lying to the government.

McCabe was fired on March 16, 2018, hours before his retirement was scheduled to take effect. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions made his decision based on recommendations from both the DOJ’s Inspector General and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility. The IG report indicated that McCabe “had made unauthorized releases of information to the media and had misled agents who questioned him about it” and had “displayed a lack of candor.” Simply put, he lied to investigators.

The IG report stated:

We found that, in a conversation with then-Director Comey shortly after the WSJ article was published, McCabe lacked candor when he told Comey, or made statements that led Comey to believe, that McCabe had not authorized the disclosure and did not know who did.  This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.5 (Lack of Candor – No Oath).

We also found that on May 9, 2017, when questioned under oath by FBI agents from INSD, McCabe lacked candor when he told the agents that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ and did not know who did.  This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor –  Under Oath).

We further found that on July 28, 2017, when questioned under oath by the OIG in a recorded interview, McCabe lacked candor when he stated: (a) that he was not aware of Special Counsel having been authorized to speak to reporters around October 30 and (b) that,  because he was not in Washington, D.C., on October 27 and 28, 2016, he was unable to say where Special Counsel was or what she was doing at that time.  This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor – Under Oath).

We additionally found that on November 29, 2017, when questioned under oath by the OIG in a recorded interview during which he contradicted his prior statements by acknowledging that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ, McCabe lacked candor when he: (a) stated that he told Comey on October 31, 2016, that he had authorized the disclosure to the WSJ; (b) denied telling INSD agents on May 9 that he had not authorized the disclosure to the WSJ about the PADAG call; and (c) asserted that INSD’s questioning of him on May 9 about the October 30 WSJ article occurred at the end of an unrelated meeting when one of the INSD agents pulled him aside and asked him one or two questions about the article. This conduct violated FBI Offense Code 2.6 (Lack of Candor –   Under Oath).

McCabe denied any wrongdoing, claiming the charges were politically motivated.

Actually, although IANAL, it looks like perjury to me.

Ratcliffe, a former federal prosecutor, said, “Here, you have the inspector general stating that Andrew McCabe did that multiple times, and the magic words, did so intentionally and knowingly. I think the Department of Justice is going to have to indict Andy McCabe, simply because to do otherwise would be to admit that there are separate standards for people doing the same thing for the same conduct. You can’t really tell the public we’re going to treat people differently for the same conduct.”

He added that the Mueller team “made a cottage industry out of charging people like General Flynn and George Papadopoulos for lying to investigators.”

The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross notes that, given McCabe’s rank at the FBI, he was “authorized to release information about ongoing investigations to the media as long as it was done in the public interest.” But, in his report, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz writes that “McCabe authorized the leak in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership.”

An August 26th report from the New York Times said that McCabe’s attorneys had met with Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. When a suspect’s attorneys meet with the Deputy AG, it is often a clue that an indictment is on the way. It can be construed as a last ditch effort for the attorneys to make the case that their client is innocent.

The New York Times report said:

Federal prosecutors in Washington appear to be in the final stages of deciding whether to seek an indictment of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy F.B.I. director and a frequent target of President Trump, on charges of lying to federal agents, according to interviews with people familiar with recent developments in the investigation.

In two meetings last week, Mr. McCabe’s lawyers met with the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who is expected to be involved in the decision about whether to prosecute, and for more than an hour with the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie K. Liu, according to a person familiar with the meetings. The person would not detail the discussions, but defense lawyers typically meet with top law enforcement officials to try to persuade them not to indict their client if they failed to get line prosecutors to drop the case.

Ratcliffe told Bartiromo that “there is a difference of opinion” over whether or not McCabe will be indicted. He said, “I don’t know how you can’t indict him when he is engaged in the same conduct that other people have recently been charged for at the Department of Justice, particularly when your own watchdog says that those lies were done intentionally and knowingly and done repeatedly.”

In an incredibly audacious move, McCabe sued the DOJ and the FBI last month. He blames Trump for his firing. His lawsuit (which can be viewed here) states that Trump had “constitutionally improper motives for removing him.”

Watch the video.