A by-the-book dismissal for cause, or part of a White House smear campaign? We sort out the facts.
WASHINGTON — Andrew G. McCabe, the former F. B. I. deputy director, was fired late Friday night — on the eve of his retirement. Here’s what we know.
Mr. McCabe is a 21-year F. B. I. veteran who joined the bureau out of law school and rose to its No. 2 position in 2016. The deputy director is essentially the F. B. I.’s chief operating officer.
He oversaw two of the most politically charged cases in F. B. I. history: the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, and the investigation of Donald J. Trump’s campaign ties to the Russian government.
Mr. McCabe was questioned as part of a wide-ranging internal inquiry into the F. B. I.’s handling of the Clinton investigation and other matters. During the internal investigation, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, Mr. McCabe “lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions.” That is a fireable offense, and Mr. Sessions said that career, apolitical employees at the F. B. I. and Justice Department agreed that Mr. McCabe should be fired.
At issue is whether Mr. McCabe was forthcoming with investigators about what Mr. Sessions said was an “unauthorized disclosure to the news media.”
Not as far as anyone can tell. The story at the heart of the case was published in The Wall Street Journal in October 2016, just days before the election as the F. B. I. raced to review newly discovered emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server. The Journal revealed a dispute between the F. B. I. and the Justice Department over how to handle a separate Clinton investigation, one into her family’s foundation.
Mr. McCabe authorized an F. B. I. spokesman and lawyer to speak to The Journal to rebut suggestions that he had put the brakes on the investigation. These types of interactions between journalists and government officials — known as “background calls” — are common in all federal agencies and administrations as officials try to correct inaccuracies or provide details and nuance before reporters publish information.
The Journal ultimately reported that while Justice Department officials did not authorize subpoenas, the F. B. I. in fact had pressed ahead with the case — a detail that if anything was damaging to Mrs. Clinton, not Mr. Trump.
No. As a career civil servant, Mr. McCabe is not a political appointee who can be summarily dismissed by the president. But this is where the situation gets complicated. Mr. Trump has repeatedly used his Twitter account to attack Mr. McCabe. Months before the firing, he taunted Mr. McCabe about his pension.
And he goaded Mr. Sessions into taking action against Mr. McCabe.
On the eve of Mr. McCabe’s firing, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, called him a “bad actor.” Taken together, this unusual level of White House commentary created a political backdrop to what should have been an independent government personnel decision. Mr. McCabe’s lawyers seized on that as evidence of improper influence.
That is one of the big unknowns. F. B. I. disciplinary matters can drag out for extended periods, and it is not uncommon for officials to retire during that process. That did not happen here, and it is not clear why. The workings of the F. B. I.’s disciplinary office are kept confidential.
Mr. McCabe’s lawyers say they were given little time to read and respond to the final report and were still receiving new evidence two days before his firing. Why the rush, they ask, if not to make sure that Mr. McCabe was fired?
“This concerted effort to accelerate the process, in order to beat the ticking clock of his scheduled retirement, violates any sense of decency and basic principles of fairness,” Mr. Bromwich said.
Mr. Trump has seized on the fact that Mr. McCabe’s wife, Jill, ran for a Virginia State Senate seat as a Democrat and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from a political ally of Mrs. Clinton. He says Mr. McCabe never should have been allowed to oversee the Clinton investigation. He says the campaign donations are proof that a pro-Clinton bias within the F. B. I. explains why Mrs. Clinton was never charged.
Mr. Trump brought up Mr. McCabe’s wife on several occasions, including a face-to-face meeting in which the president called her a “loser.”
Yes and no. Mr. McCabe did not begin supervising the Clinton investigation until after his wife had lost the race, and records show that he sought ethics and legal advice inside the F. B. I. before deciding not to recuse himself. But some in the F. B. I. believe he should never have been involved because of his wife’s campaign donations.
When he ultimately recused himself, late in the investigation, it only fueled the argument that he should have stepped aside from the beginning.
Mr. Trump’s theory of Mr. McCabe as a pro-Clinton partisan, however, is on far shakier ground. Mr. McCabe has identified himself as a lifelong Republican and did not vote in the 2016 election. The newspaper story that Mr. McCabe authorized F. B. I. officials speak about was not a positive one for Mrs. Clinton.
And, perhaps most importantly, in the months before the election, when the F. B. I. publicly disclosed information about its work on the Clinton investigation, it never revealed the existence and scope of a full-throated investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.
Like so much at the F. B. I., Mr. McCabe’s firing has become inextricably entangled in presidential politics and the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Mr. McCabe was one of only a handful of F. B. I. officials involved in the Russia investigation from the first days. He supervised it at every step and was involved in the decision to seek a wiretap on Carter Page, a former Trump foreign adviser. That wiretap application was approved by senior Justice Department officials, was reapproved by Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department and was signed by a federal judge based on evidence that Mr. Page was a Russian agent. Mr. Trump has declared that wiretap to be improper, however, and points to it as evidence of political surveillance by the F. B. I.
Mr. McCabe also worked alongside the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, who accused Mr. Trump of seeking a loyalty oath and pressing him to end the investigation. Those conversations are now part of an obstruction investigation. Mr. McCabe kept memos on his conversations with Mr. Comey, which could help investigators corroborate Mr. Comey’s account.
Mr. McCabe argues that the Trump administration is trying to discredit him as a potential witness.
