DOJ drops criminal investigation into former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe News
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DOJ drops criminal investigation into former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its criminal investigation involving former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe without bringing charges on Friday. The letter stated, “based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the Government at this time, we consider the matter closed.”

McCabe was fired in 2018 after the inspector general determined that McCabe misled investigators in their inquiry regarding the foreign interference of the 2016 presidential election. As a result, McCabe filed a lawsuit in 2019 alleging that his dismissal was unjust and politically motivated.

This decision is expected to heighten tensions between President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who publicly declared this week that Trump’s comments about the DOJ were undercutting his agenda and raising questions about his credibility.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.