Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired on Friday evening, 26 hours before he would have been able to retire and qualify for his full Federal pension, at least some of which may now be at risk. In keeping with what is becoming a classic move by the Trump administration, McCabe heard about his firing from a friend – before he was told by either the White House or by FBI Director Christopher Wray. Though Attorney General Jeff Sessions emailed Andrew McCabe to fire him, McCabe didn’t see Sessions’ firing statement until after it had become television news.
Andrew McCabe supervised the FBI investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal, in which Clinton was found to have used a private email server for government correspondence. McCabe also oversaw the investigation of collusion by Russia in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Since Andrew McCabe is a career Civil Service employees and not a political appointee, Donald Trump did not have the power to fire McCAbe. Instead, Trump prevailed on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire him.
Sessions stated that Andrew McCabe was fired for alleged misconduct, and that career officials at the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) had also recommended terminating McCabe. An internal review by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is understood to say that Andrew McCabe “misled investigators about his role in directing other officials at the FBI to speak to The Wall Street Journal about his involvement in a public corruption investigation into the Clinton Foundation.”
According to Sessions, “The FBI’s OPR then reviewed the report and underlying documents and issued a disciplinary proposal recommending the dismissal of Mr. McCabe. Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions.”
Donald Trump has been waging a Twitter battle against Andrew McCabe for months. Trump seems obsessed with the idea that McCabe’s wife, Jill, who ran for a Virginia State Senate seat (and was defeated), received nearly $700,000 from Hilary Clinton for her campaign, and, that a “pro-Clinton” bias within the FBI was the reason why Clinton was never charged with regard to the email server investigation.
In reality, it was not Hilary Clinton who made the donation to Jill McCabe’s campaign, it was Common Good VA, a PAC controlled by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, who made the contribution. What’s more, the timeline makes this even less relevant; Jill McCabe ran for the Senate (and was defeated) in 2015. Andrew McCabe did not become Deputy Director of the FBI until 2016.
In light of this, the question that first arose in January, when Andrew McCabe announced his intent to retire, remains: With Andrew McCabe gone, is the way clear to eliminate Robert Mueller?
‘The Five’ on Fallout from the Firing of Andrew McCabe | Fox News [2018-03-19]
How Will Andrew McCabe’s Firing Affect the Mueller Probe? | PBS News Hour [2018-03-19]
