It’s a fair question, and NBC’s Savannah Guthrie doesn’t let Andrew McCabe off the hook easily on it. It doesn’t help McCabe’s case when he tries to explain why he left out the 25th-Amendment and wire-wearing stories out of his memoir, either. Guthrie notes that McCabe’s credibility on these issues might be a bit dented after the Department of Justice determined that McCabe had misled investigators about a leak to the Wall Street Journal.

“I was fired because I opened a case against the president of the United States,” McCabe protested on Today, but Guthrie doesn’t quite buy that explanation:

“Why should anyone believe you when you were fired from the FBI for lying?” @savannahguthrie asks Andrew McCabe pic.twitter.com/OqlnZhShsw

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 19, 2019

GUTHRIE: I read the Inspector General’s report. That suggests the Inspector General is in on it and firing you for — basically making up a pretext to fire you. Is that what you’re suggesting?

MCCABE: Here’s what I can tell you. I read that report very, ah, very closely myself. I’ve been writing and reading investigative reports for over twenty years. And that report was not like anything I have ever read before. An investigative report includes all of the evidence, it includes all of the information, not just those facts that support the conclusion that you like to draw. So I have big problems with that report, I disagree with the conclusions they drew, and that is something I’ll be raising in a civil lawsuit I’ll be bringing against the Department of Justice.

GUTHRIE: It was quite detailed, and it states that you displayed this lack of candor, as it puts it, on four different occasions. I mean, that’s not just ‘well, we didn’t understand, I’m not sure, I was distracted.’ That’s four separate occasions in which the Inspector General says you were not forthcoming, you did not tell the truth.

MCCABE: Yeah, and I would love to walk through every one of the points that I have for each one of those things they said in that report. But I can’t do that to you — with you this morning because of the lawsuit we’re about to file.

At present, McCabe might want to retain counsel for a potential prosecution rather than a lawsuit. The man who took up the reins of the counterintelligence probe McCabe ordered, Robert Mueller, has prosecuted more than one person for lying to FBI investigators on a single occasion, let alone four of them. My friend and Townhall colleague Katie Pavlich wondered last April when the DoJ would demonstrate equality under the law and take similar action against McCabe, whose lies might be even more egregious — and were certainly self-serving:

“As detailed in this report, the OIG found that then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the [Journal], and that conduct violated FBI Offense Codes 2.5 and 2.6,” the report states. “The OIG also concluded that McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in the manner described in this report violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”

“McCabe sought to legitimize his actions by falsely claiming that he had told Comey that he authorized the disclosure and that Comey was fine with his decision,” the report continues.

McCabe was caught lying four times, three of them under oath. OIG issued the full report to the FBI “for such action that it deems to be appropriate.” In other words, referred McCabe for disciplinary action to be determined by the FBI and Department of Justice.

This is the ultimate question. Will McCabe face prosecution for lying multiple times under oath to federal authorities? Or will he keep his taxpayer-funded pension after being fired and live happily in retirement as a martyr for the resistance?

So far it’s the latter, but McCabe’s not doing a very good job pulling that off. Guthrie sounded similarly skeptical when she pressed McCabe to explain why he left two blockbuster revelations out of his book, only to discuss them on his book tour. McCabe said he considers them a “distraction”:

Andrew McCabe explains his decision to not discuss allegations about 25th Amendment or story about Rod Rosenstein offering to wear a wire in his book pic.twitter.com/hNO0jQ7h0x

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 19, 2019

“It’s become quite a distraction,” McCabe says, “a distraction from the points I am trying to make.” Perhaps there’s another, more practical reason for their omission — the events didn’t unfold in the manner McCabe claims. Rod Rosenstein (about whom more later today) has flat-out denied being serious about wearing a wire or discussing Trump’s removal at all. Former FBI general counsel James Baker testified to Congress that McCabe came to him about a 25th Amendment removal, claiming that he had two Cabinet officials ready to act. Guthrie alludes to that as well, but McCabe parries that line of questioning.

In short, nothing McCabe says here adds up to anything more than McCabe’s attempts at self-promotion. If you’re in the market for that, here’s the interview in full.