Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director fired by Donald Trump one day before he would qualify for a full pension, will receive his full pension under a settlement with the Justice Department, the New York Times reports.
McCabe will receive the balance of his pension benefits going back to the day he was fired in March 2018. That will amount to $200,000 in cash; the Department of Justice will also pay his $500,000 in legal fees incurred following his firing. The FBI will also expunge any reference to his firing in his personnel records, and it will award McCabe custom cufflinks and a display of his awards and medals, the customary parting gift for retiring senior officials.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, Trump’s first attorney general, fired McCabe one day before he was fully vested in his pension based on a report that McCabe lied to the department’s inspector general about contact with a news reporter. Justice Department lawyers did not find cause to bring criminal charges against McCabe.
McCabe became a favorite target of Donald Trump, who viewed McCabe as the personification of corruption at the Justice Department because McCabe authorized the FBI to probe the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia and how Russia worked to corrupt the 2016 election.
Christopher Wray, the Trump-appointed FBI director, demoted McCabe, likely because of pressure from superiors; McCabe then filed for an extended leave that would take him to his retirement date. Sessions acted to fire McCabe without involving Wray.