Andrew McCabe Defense Fund: With $500K Raised, FBI Deputy Director Fired by Trump Stops Taking Donations
Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director fired by the Trump administration, has stopped accepting donations to his legal defense fund after his GoFundMe page tripled its original $150,000 target.
The goal was later updated to $250,000 but the fund also smashed this milestone, standing at $554,520 early on Tuesday morning. More than 13,200 people have donated to the fund since it was created on March 29.
In a statement posted to the page on Monday, McCabe said that the support had been “simply overwhelming” leaving him “stunned and extraordinarily grateful.”
“I never imagined that I would need to rely on this type of assistance,” the statement continued. “The fact is that if I am going to continue taking a stand against the unfair way I have been treated, I will need the help of a talented and courageous team behind me.
“It is not lost on me that each contribution reflects not just someone's well wishes, but also their acknowledgement that something in this situation is not fair or just,” McCabe said.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions dismissed McCabe as deputy director of the FBI in March, just hours before his 50th birthday when he would have become eligible for his full law enforcement pension.
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Sessions said McCabe had demonstrated a “lack of candor” and made “an unauthorized disclosure to the news media,” citing a 2016 Wall Street Journal article which claimed McCabe had slowed an ongoing probe into the Clinton Foundation and misled investigators. McCabe denied the reports, and said he asked officials to speak with the Journal to “correct factually inaccurate things.”
Trump tweeted his support for the decision, which he said marked “a great day for democracy.” The president has repeatedly targeted McCabe on Twitter and accused him of political bias.
McCabe has dismissed allegations of wrongdoing, arguing that his firing is part of a “larger effort” by the Trump administration to discredit the U.S. intelligence community. The former deputy director also said he was being targeted because he is an important witness to Trump’s alleged obstruction of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
McCabe said the action “is part of this administration's ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the special counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the special counsel's work.”
McCabe's spokeswoman explained that the legal fund will be used to cover the costs of responding to requests from the Justice Department inspector general and oversight hearings in Congress. Any funds remaining in the fund after all legal action is concluded will be donated to charitable organizations chosen by McCabe and his family.