FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe sacked by AG Jeff Sessions

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe less than two days before his retirement from the bureau.

The firing, effective immediately, was announced late Friday night in a statement by the Department of Justice.

Mr. McCabe was fired after a review by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recommended the dismissal after an internal review.

The report, which has yet to have been made public, is said to have concluded Mr. McCabe mislead investigators about his role in allowing FBI officials to speak reporters at The Wall Street Journal about a corruption investigation into the Clinton Foundation, according to published reports on Wednesday.

Although the Justice Department did not confirm if McCabe was fired for The Wall Street Journal interview, it did say he made “an authorized disclosure to the news media.”

“After an extensive and fair investigation and according to Department of Justice procedure, the Department’s Office of Inspector General provided its report on allegations of misconduct by Andrew McCabe to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility,” the statement said. “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. The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and accountability. As the OPR proposal stated, “all FBI employees know that lacking candor under oath results in dismissal and integrity is our brand.”

On Thursday, reports surfaced that Mr. McCabe and his attorney attempted to avoid the firing in a meeting with Justice Department officials. Mr. Sessions was traveling that day and it is unclear if he participated in the meetings.

By firing Mr. McCabe now, instead of allowing him to retire, it could put the 21-year FBI vet’s pension at risk. That could cost Mr. McCabe hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Howoritz’s report is part of the his investigation into how the Justice Department and FBI handled the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and other matters related to the 2016 presidential election. It is expected to released this spring. but last month President Trump criticized the report as “already late.”

Mr. McCabe’s retirement was to take effect Sunday, but he stepped down in January nearly two months before his scheduled departure. A government official at that time said Mr. McCabe was merely using his retirement eligibility a few weeks early, but rumors had began circulating that the early departure was related to the inspector general’s report.

The former FBI official, who was once the agency’s second highest ranking official, was a frequent target of Mr. Trump over the past year. Mr. Trump had used Mr. McCabe as proof Obama-era Justice Department officials were seeking to undermine his presidency.

In a tweet last year, Mr. Trump linked Mr. McCabe to former FBI Director James Comey, whom the president fired.

“Why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got big dollars ($700,000) for his wife’s political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives,” Mr. Trump tweeted last year.

Mr. McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, received political contributions totaling $467,500 from the political action committee of Virginia’s governor at the time, Terry McAuliffe, for her unsuccessful campaign for the state Senate in 2015. Mr. McAuliffe was co-chairman of President Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign and chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Mr. McCabe later took over as deputy director of the FBI and oversaw the Clinton email investigation.

And that’s not the only reason administration officials are suspicious about Mr. McCabe’s motives, a perception that go back to the first months of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

A since-debunked February 2017 New York Times story reported that U.S. intelligence owned numerous intercepts and phone records of Trump campaign officials communicating with Russian intelligence.

In his new book, “Media Madness,” Fox News reporter Howard Kurtz wrote that then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was conducting an intelligence meeting when Mr. McCabe called him aside. “We want you to know that everything in this New York Times story is buls–-,” Mr. Kurtz quotes Mr. McCabe as saying.

Mr. Priebus asked whether the FBI would shoot it down. The answer came back, “No,” because then the FBI would have to start commenting on news stories.

“Give me a break,” Mr. Priebus said. “I’m getting crushed all over the place, and you won’t say publicly what you told me privately?”

What happened next raised suspicions. Suddenly CNN broadcast a story casting Mr. Priebus as the bad guy trying to convince the reluctant FBI to knock down an anti-Trump story.

Mr. Kurtz said Mr. Priebus wondered, “Had he been set up? Why was the FBI leaking this information when one of its top officials had initiated the conversation?”

In June former FBI Director James B. Comey, under questioning by Republicans before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said The Times story in February was almost all wrong. When the story appeared, he said he checked with the intelligence community and then warned congressional leaders off the report.