Andrew McCabe

Andrew George McCabe (born March 18, 1968) is an American attorney who served as the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from February 2016 to March 2018 and as the acting Director of the FBI from May 9, 2017, to August 2, 2017. McCabe joined the FBI as a special agent in 1996 and served with the bureau's SWAT team. He became a supervisory special agent in 2003 and held management positions of increasing responsibility until he was appointed deputy director of the FBI in February 2016. McCabe became the acting Director of the FBI following James Comey's dismissal by then President Donald Trump, and served in that position until Trump's appointment of Christopher A. Wray. McCabe later departed from the FBI on poor terms with Trump. After leaving the Trump administration, McCabe has been a contributor at CNN since 2019.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe on March 16, 2018, 26 hours before his scheduled retirement. Sessions announced that he based his decision on reports from the DOJ Inspector General and the FBI's disciplinary office saying that McCabe had secretly and improperly authorized releases of information to The Wall Street Journal about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation and had misled agents who questioned him about it on four occasions, three of which were under oath. McCabe disputed these charges and alleged that his firing was politically motivated. In September 2019, federal prosecutors recommended McCabe be indicted for actions relating to the leak, but the grand jury did not return an indictment. On February 14, 2020, the Justice Department informed McCabe's attorneys that it had declined to prosecute McCabe.