'Retire' fire burns for top FBI deputy
McCabe eyes exit amid Trump taunts
President Trump unloaded on Andrew McCabe Saturday amid reports that the embattled FBI deputy director plans to jump from the agency in early March, when he becomes eligible to retire.
“FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits,” Trump tweeted at 3:30 p.m. “90 days to go?!!!”
McCabe (above), 49, has been at the center of a string of controversies at the bureau for more than a year and faced sharp GOP criticism in three congressional hearings last week.
Trump touched on several of the hot-button issues involving McCabe in a tweet at 3:27 p.m.
“How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?” Trump asked.
McCabe was the top aide to former FBI Director James Comey and stayed on at the bureau after Trump fired Comey in May.
Comey’s dismissal led to the opening of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.
McCabe was involved in the investigation of former secretary of state and presidential candidate Clinton’s e-mail server and the shady, Trump-related “Russia dossier” that originated as a piece of Democratic opposition campaign research.
In December, e-mails from McCabe aide Lisa Page revealed intense anti-Trump partisanship at the FBI’s highest levels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The Page e-mails implicated McCabe in a conversation about an “insurance policy” regarding Trump — a cryptic reference that House Republicans believe referred to measures that the agency could take to short-circuit a Trump victory.
On Friday, Florida Republican House member Matt Gaetz told Fox News Channel that e-mail evidence exists proving that Clinton was going to get an “HQ special.’’ That meant, he said, the normal investigative processes were not followed thanks to “extremely biased” pro-Clinton FBI members.
Conservatives were outraged in 2016 to learn that large amounts of campaign cash were funneled to McCabe’s wife from a Political Action Committee headed by close Clinton ally and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Critics said the donation, for Dr. Jill McCabe’s failed run for the Virginia state Senate in 2015, could have tainted McCabe’s objectivity.
Candidate Trump railed against the donation in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign.
“Now that’s Clinton giving the money, because that’s how close they are,” Trump said on Oct. 25, 2016. “She gave money at a huge clip, $675,000 to the wife of the FBI agent who was in charge of her investigation. Let me tell you something — that’s a criminal act.”
Still, the donation occurred — and Dr. McCabe lost her race — before her husband became involved in the FBI’s examination of Clinton’s e-mails.
Andrew McCabe’s role in the Clinton investigation is under scrutiny by the Justice Department’s inspector general, who is compiling a report on its handling.