Trump heralds firing of Andrew McCabe as a ‘great day for democracy’

“Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy,” Trump tweeted just after midnight Saturday. “Sanctimonious [former FBI Director] James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”

The president’s tweet came just over two hours after Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed McCabe had been terminated as an employee, less than 48 hours before he planned to formally retire and collect a full pension. Officials at the FBI recommended that he be fired before he had planned to retire on Sunday, his 50th birthday.

Previously, Trump, along with Republican allies, accused McCabe of bias because his wife took donations from an ally of Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 election rival, during her unsuccessful run as a Democrat for a Virginia state Senate seat in 2015, though the FBI released internal documents showing there was no conflict of interest for McCabe.

Though Trump did interview McCabe to replace Comey after he was fired in the spring of 2017, Trump would later criticize what role McCabe played in the FBI investigations into Clinton, and took to Twitter to chastise him in January after it was reported McCabe would leave the bureau this spring.

McCabe, who was appointed by Comey in January 2016, announced his intent earlier this year to go on “terminal leave” until he could retire and be eligible for full pension in mid-March.

In a lengthy statement of his own Friday evening, McCabe defended himself, claiming there has been an effort to “slander” him. He also said that the push to remove him was part of the Trump administration’s “ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation,” which is looking at whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.