FBI’s McCabe Steps Down Amid Trump Criticism, Source Says

• January 29 2018
• Chris Strohm

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has received blistering criticism from President Donald Trump, has stepped down and will be on leave until he retires sometime in the spring, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has received blistering criticism from President Donald Trump, has stepped down and will be on leave until he retires sometime in the spring, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.

Trump and some Republican lawmakers have increasingly argued there’s evidence that past officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including McCabe, were biased toward Democrat Hillary Clinton and against Trump in the run-up to last year’s presidential election.

Last week, Trump told reporters he didn’t remember asking McCabe -- then acting FBI director -- whom he voted for in the 2016 presidential election shortly after the president fired former FBI Director James Comey. The Washington Post reported that the conversation with McCabe is of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller.

"I don’t think so. No, I don’t think I did. I don’t know what’s the big deal with that, because I asked -- I would ask you, ‘Who did you vote for?’ But I don’t remember that," Trump told reporters. "I don’t remember asking him the question. I also think it is a very unimportant question."

On Monday, the president ignored shouted questions from reporters about McCabe.

The Washington Post had reported in December that he planned to leave the bureau some time after he becomes fully eligible for pension benefits in March.

Trump tweeted in late December, “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!”

Political Controversies

McCabe’s tenure has become entangled in recent years in politically charged controversies, including the investigation into Clinton’s use of private email when she was secretary of state, and the ongoing criminal probe into Russian interference.

Most recently, House Republicans demanded to know what discussions McCabe might have had in 2016 with two FBI officials who exchanged text messages critical of Trump. One of them referred to a meeting in “Andy’s office” where they discussed “that there’s no way” Trump would be elected but “we can’t take that risk.”

McCabe also came under Republican criticism in 2016 when he helped oversee the Clinton email investigation even though his wife had accepted donations from Democratic political organizations for an unsuccessful election bid in 2015 to the Virginia state senate.

The FBI said in a statement at the time that McCabe “played no role” in his wife’s campaign “and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind.”

“He ought to be replaced. And I’ve said that before and I’ve said it to people who can do it,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said on Dec. 19, the day before McCabe was interviewed behind closed doors by the House Intelligence Committee.

McCabe joined the FBI in 1996 and held management positions in the counterterrorism division and the Washington field office. He became the FBI’s acting director after Comey was fired in May, and served in that role until Aug. 2 when Christopher Wray took charge.