Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe will receive his full pension after settling a lawsuit with the Department of Justice (DOJ) over his firing for reportedly lying about media leaks.
In addition to receiving his pension going forward, McCabe will also receive $200,000 in back pension pay and $539,000 in attorneys’ fees, as part of an agreement with the DOJ signed Thursday. Then-Attorney General (AG) Jeff Sessions fired McCabe two days before his scheduled retirement in March 2018, after an inspector general (IG) report found that he authorized leaks about the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
The Biden DOJ is giving Andrew McCabe his pension back, even though an Obama-appointed inspector general found McCabe lied to his own FBI https://t.co/puFuy7HHUA
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 14, 2021
“Politics should never play a role in the fair administration of justice and Civil Service personnel decisions,” McCabe said in a statement to the New York Times. “I hope that this result encourages the men and women of the F.B.I. to continue to protect the American people by standing up for the truth and doing their jobs without fear of political retaliation.”
The IG report, released in April 2018, found that McCabe authorized a leak about the existence of an investigation of the Clinton Foundation for a 2016 Wall Street Journal article “in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership.”
The article, published nine days before the 2016 election, revealed disagreements in the FBI’s approach to investigating a tranche of emails discovered on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Weiner was married at the time to Huma Abedin, the vice chair of Clinton’s election campaign and her former chief of staff. Weiner was under investigation at the time for alleged sexual misconduct with a minor. It also revealed that the Clinton Foundation was being investigated by four FBI field offices for financial crimes and influence-peddling.
The report “concluded that McCabe’s disclosure of the existence of an ongoing investigation in this manner violated the FBI’s and the Department’s media policy and constituted misconduct.”
It also noted four instances in which McCabe “lacked candor” in his responses to questions from investigators about the leaks. At least two of the instances were under oath.
McCabe’s lawsuit alleged that he was fired because then-President Donald Trump engaged in an “unconstitutional plan and scheme to discredit and remove DOJ and FBI employees who were deemed to be his partisan opponents because they were not politically loyal to him.” (RELATED: Andrew McCabe Raises $550k To Help Pay His Lawyers)
Trump described McCabe’s firing as “a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI” and “a great day for Democracy.”
As part of the settlement, McCabe’s employment records will be amended to expunge his firing and state that he retired from the FBI of his own volition in March 2018.