WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Friday night that he was firing former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a longtime and frequent target of President Donald Trump’s anger, just two days before his scheduled retirement date.
The move, which had been expected, was made on the recommendation of FBI disciplinary officials and comes ahead of an inspector general report expected to conclude that McCabe was not forthcoming with the watchdog office as it reviewed the bureau’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
Sessions said in a statement that investigators “concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”
McCabe immediately disputed the findings in his own statement, saying the firing was part of a Trump administration “war” on the FBI.
“I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey,” McCabe said, referring to the former FBI director who was fired by last May.
Though McCabe had spent more than 20 years as a career FBI official, and had played key roles in some of the bureau’s most recent significant investigations, Trump repeatedly condemned him over the last year as emblematic of an FBI leadership he contends is biased against his administration. The White House had said the firing decision was up to the Justice Department but seemed to signal this week that it would welcome the move.
The termination is symbolic to an extent since McCabe had been on leave from the FBI since last January, when he abruptly left the deputy director position. But it comes just ahead of his planned retirement, on Sunday, and puts his ability to receive pension benefits into jeopardy.
McCabe came under scrutiny from the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office over an October 2016 news report that revealed differing approaches within the FBI and Justice Department over how aggressively the Clinton Foundation should be investigated. The watchdog office had concluded that McCabe had authorized FBI officials to speak to a Wall Street Journal reporter for that story and that he had not been forthcoming with investigators about that — something McCabe denies, according to one person familiar with the matter.
He became acting director following the firing of Comey, and immediately assumed oversight of the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
