Andrew McCabe gives interview, personal memos on Trump to Robert Mueller

McCabe has already turned the memos over to FBI special counsel Robert Mueller and has provided the investigation team with an interview, according to Axios and a Wall Street Journal source. Mueller is looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe less than 48 hours before he had planned to retire. Sessions cited “alleged misconduct” following an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

The Associated Press learned of the memos from a person who has direct knowledge of the situation and spoke anonymously. The source said the memos are similar to those by fired FBI Director James Comey, who detailed several conversations he had with Trump. The McCabe memos reportedly contain information about Comey’s firing as well as details about at least one interaction with Trump.

Multiple news organizations have sued for the Comey memos to be publicly released, but a federal judge determined in February that the documents could harm Mueller’s probe.

Trump has insisted that his campaign did not collude with Russia and has called the investigation a “witch hunt.”

Comey has said in congressional testimony that he kept the memos because he worried that Trump might lie about their interactions, and McCabe said in a statement that he believes he has been targeted because he can confirm Comey’s accounts.

Sessions said in a statement that he fired McCabe because the investigations concluded he “had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions.” The report hasn’t been released to the public.

McCabe has said that he gave information to a Wall Street Journal reporter, with the proper authorization, and that FBI Director Christopher Wray knew about it. McCabe had shared in the story how he pushed back against other FBI officials regarding the investigation into the emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

McCabe, who had been with the FBI for 21 years and had been appointed by Comey, announced his intent earlier this year to go on “terminal leave” until he could retire and be eligible for full pension in mid-March.

On Thursday, McCabe had asked senior officials in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s office to be allowed to retire on his 50th birthday. The decision ultimately was in the hands of Sessions because of his high-ranking nature in the bureau.

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After the firing, McCabe said he and his family “have been the targets of an unrelenting assault on our reputation and my service to this country.”

“The President’s tweets have amplified and exacerbated it all. He called for my firing. He called for me to be stripped of my pension after more than 20 years of service,” McCabe said. “And all along we have said nothing, never wanting to distract from the mission of the FBI by addressing the lies told and repeated about us. No more.”

Trump criticized McCabe’s actions involving Clinton’s emails and has criticized him on Twitter. The Washington Post reported that Trump had asked McCabe which candidate he voted for in the 2016 presidential election, and on Saturday Trump raised questions about how McCabe’s wife, Dr. Jill McCabe, had run for state office in Virginia with help of former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Clinton ally.

The president has called McCabe’s firing a “great day for democracy.”