McCabe: I was axed in campaign to ‘taint FBI’
FBI DEPUTY director Andrew McCabe was fired Friday — just hours away from retirement — in what he calls the Trump Administration’s war on the bureau.
McCabe, 49, who had spearheaded investigations into both Russian influence in the Trump campaign and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s misuse of email servers, had become a recent target of the president.
The former deputy director was accused of being biased toward Clinton and against Trump.
McCabe claims his credibility has been attacked as “part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally.”
“It is part of this administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the special counsel investigation, which continue to this day,” he added, referring to Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the special counsel’s work.
“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.
McCabe was slated to retire on Sunday, capping a 22-year career in law enforcement.
His early firing will strip him of his pension.
Officially, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he axed the G-man for misleading investigators looking into a leak to The Wall Street Journal about the Clinton email probe. “The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and accountability,” the attorney general said. He quoted from an internal report, that “all FBI employeesknow that lacking candor under oath results in dismissal.” Sessions said that the decision to fire McCabe came after the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility recommended the deputy director be canned. The Wall Street Journal article that came out of the FBI interview authorized by McCabe undercut the White House narrative that he was biased toward Clinton.
The Journal story was published two days after then-FBI director James Comey announced in a letter to Congress that the bureau was reopening its investigation into Clinton.
McCabe’s spokeswoman told The Washington Post that he learned he was out of a job from media reports, but the DOJ told the Daily News that McCabe and his lawyers were emailed about his dismissal 10 minutes before the press was alerted.
For over three months, President Trump taunted McCabe over Twitter, with his final volley Friday night.
“Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI.”