Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe two days before he was slated to retire — and become eligible for full pension benefits, CNBC informed.
In a statement, Sessions said reports from both the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that McCabe had made “an unauthorized disclosure to the news media” and “lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”
McCabe, who had been the deputy director of the FBI, took over the agency on an interim basis after President Donald Trump fired James Comey last year, but stepped down in January.
McCabe told the New York Times, “The idea that I was dishonest is just wrong,” and suggested that “this is part of an effort to discredit me as a witness.”
McCabe is a potential witness in the FBI investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, and could corroborate former FBI Director Comey’s potential testimony. Although he had already announced his retirement, his firing places his federal pension at risk.
In December, Trump had referenced that pension issue in a Twitter post, saying that McCabe was “racing the clock to retire with full benefits.”
In a tweet on Friday night, Trump said that the firing was a “great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI.”
Trump and some Republicans in Congress have accused McCabe of political bias, citing his role at the FBI during investigations related to Hillary Clinton and Trump. They question his role in the Clinton email probe and the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin.
The President had thrown jabs at McCabe in a manner unusual for a president and a top FBI official. Trump repeatedly accused McCabe of improper ties to Clinton because former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe — a Clinton ally — backed McCabe’s wife’s run for a state office in 2015. The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2016 that McAuliffe’s political organization gave nearly $500,000 to Jill McCabe’s campaign for state Senate.
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