› Sessions fires former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe,

WASHINGTON — Andrew McCabe, a former top FBI official who became a target of President Donald Trump’s angry tweets, has been fired less than two days ahead of his planned retirement Sunday after Justice Department officials concluded he had made misleading statements during an internal investigation.

McCabe was sacked Friday night by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who acted on a recommendation from the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles allegations of improper conduct.

The last-minute dismissal is likely to reduce or delay McCabe’s ability to take his government pension despite nearly 22 years of service at the FBI. He was planning to retire March 18, when he turns 50, the minimum age to draw the pension.

McCabe had stepped down as deputy director, the No. 2 position at the FBI, in January because of the internal inquiry at the Justice Department, but took leave until he could claim his retirement benefits.

His ouster follows an extraordinary series of harsh jabs by Trump, who said McCabe had a partisan bias against him. The president began attacking McCabe by name on Twitter last summer and exhorted Sessions to get rid of him.

At issue was McCabe’s role supervising FBI investigations into how Democrat Hillary Clinton handled government emails while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, an issue that dogged her presidential campaign. Trump appeared to blame McCabe for the decision not to charge Clinton with a crime.

Trump and other Republicans also accused McCabe of an ethical conflict because McCabe’s wife had accepted $700,000 from a political action committee controlled by a close Clinton ally, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, when she unsuccessfully ran for public office in the state.