Your comments on this thread are spot-on. We can assume that since the IG report, McCabe’s lawyers have made various proffers but now that there is only one step left, he really is at the endgame. He probably has a day or two to offer up something really good in terms of testimony (like ratting out Comey?) that they can’t get otherwise, to escape indictment.
Until the indictment is unsealed he is still able to negotiate but it’s clear that AG Barr wants to bring this to an end.
There are many forms of punishment other than going to jail, for Comey I suspect it will be the “scarlet letter” treatment as I do not expect him to be indicted but having his image tarnished and his reputation ruined will hurt him deeply because he is such a narcissist. But McCabe is just plain a dirty cop and more than any I hope he does go to jail. It would take something humongous to not indict him if I were the US attorney.
As for the fact that it’s about lying about the Clinton Foundation investigation, so what? He lied to benefit himself because he leaked that information to protect himself and his wife from the $700K they accepted for her campaign. Corruption does not get any more blatant than that.
comey is an ethics professor make money speaking and writing. I can see how he is really suffering.