Andrew McCabe Steps Down at F.B.I. in Widely Expected Move

Story by New York Times
Written by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo

WASHINGTON — Andrew G. McCabe has stepped down as the F.B.I.’s deputy director, a move that was widely expected as he has repeatedly come under fire from Republicans in Congress and from President Trump.

Mr. McCabe made his intentions known to colleagues on Monday, an American official said. He will immediately go on leave and plans to retire when he becomes eligible in mid-March.

By appointing Mr. McCabe to the F.B.I.’s second-highest position in 2016, the director at the time, James B. Comey, was seen as valuing intellect and management over experience making cases. Mr. McCabe, a graduate of Duke and of Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, quickly ascended the bureau’s ranks, sometimes rankling the workaday agents who believed he did not pay his dues in the field.

Mr. McCabe’s supporters, though, regarded him as a new model for the F.B.I., which had transformed from a traditional law-and-order agency to a complicated intelligence-gathering operation.

Mr. McCabe joined the F.B.I. in 1996 as an agent in the New York office and moved quickly into some of the bureau’s most important jobs. Under Mr. Comey, it was clear that Mr. McCabe was being groomed for the deputy job.

But he took on the role during one of the most tumultuous and politically fraught periods in F.B.I. history. Agents investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the Trump campaign’s connections to Russian intelligence officers, and Mr. McCabe was at the center of both inquiries.

He first drew Mr. Trump’s ire because his wife, Jill McCabe, ran for a State Senate seat in Virginia as a Democrat and accepted nearly $500,000 in contributions from the political organization of Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend of the Clintons.

Mr. McCabe did not become deputy director until after his wife was defeated, and records show that he disclosed his wife’s candidacy and sought advice from senior F.B.I. officials. But critics, including some inside the bureau itself, said he should have recused himself. The F.B.I. has said Mr. McCabe played no role in his wife’s campaign.

Mr. Trump and his allies have sought to use Mr. McCabe’s wife’s campaign as evidence that the Russia investigation was part of a Democratic-led effort to undermine his candidacy and presidency.