Ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe sues Justice Department over his firing

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe sued the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr, claiming he was illegally fired last year for allegedly failing to fully disclose conversations he had with a reporter about pending investigations.

Barr’s predecessor, Jeff Sessions, fired McCabe in March 2018, just before he would have retired, after President Trump railed against McCabe on Twitter. Trump celebrated the firing in a tweet on March 16.

In a complaint filed Thursday in Washington federal court, McCabe asked for a judge’s order deeming him to have retired as an agent in good standing, fully eligible for his pension and health benefits as he said he planned.

The 48-page filing touts McCabe’s 21 years of service to the bureau, which ended amid his participation in the probe of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and its possible coordination with Russian government efforts to tilt the election result in Trump’s favor.

“Defendants responded to plaintiff’s two decades of unblemished and non-partisan public service with a politically motivated and retaliatory demotion in January 2018 and public firing in March 2018 — on the very night of plaintiff’s long-planned retirement from the FBI,” according to the filing.

“[McCabe] told the world he was the one who authorized opening an investigation on the president’s role with respect to the Mueller investigation and Russian interference… The president must have felt very threatened by what McCabe did” - Chuck Rosenberg w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/MQmGV8oMeS

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) August 8, 2019

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec declined to comment on the McCabe case.

Sessions said then that McCabe’s ouster was based on an internal report that concluded McCabe wasn’t forthright on several occasions. McCabe responded that his termination came only after he’d told the House Intelligence Committee he could back up fired FBI Director James Comey’s recollection of conversations he had with the president.

“[McCabe] told the world he was the one who authorized opening an investigation on the president’s role with respect to the Mueller investigation and Russian interference… The president must have felt very threatened by what McCabe did” - Chuck Rosenberg w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/MQmGV8oMeS

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) August 8, 2019

McCabe later said he’d opened the obstruction and counter-intelligence probes of potential Trump ties to Russia after Comey, his boss, had been fired in May 2017.

He also sued the FBI and its director, Christopher Wray. The suit comes one day after former FBI agent Peter Strzok sued the same people over his firing last year. The men are represented by different law firms.