“Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of (FBI director) James Comey,” McCabe said.
Trump’s dismissal of Comey and events surrounding it are reported to be a key aspect of Mueller’s investigation into the president.
McCabe added that a report by the Department of Justice Inspector General’s office, which looked into his role in the handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s email server, was stepped up “only after my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed that I would corroborate former Director Comey’s accounts of his discussions with the president.”
“The (Inspector General’s office) focus on me and this report became a part of an unprecedented effort by the administration, driven by the president himself, to remove me from my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension that I worked 21 years to earn,” he continued. “The accelerated release of the report, and the punitive actions taken in response, make sense only when viewed through this lens. Thursday’s comments from the White House are just the latest example of this.”
The last line was a reference to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling reporters that McCabe was a “bad actor.”
McCabe has in the past been targeted for attacks repeatedly by Trump.
Early Saturday morning, the president tweeted that McCabe’s firing was a “great day” for democracy.
The FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility had recommend that McCabe be fired after the inspector general report determined that he had not been fully truthful in his answers to investigators’ questions about the handling of the Clinton probe, according to officials familiar with the report. The report has not yet been released to the public but is expected to be in the next few weeks.
“For the last year and a half, my family and I have been the targets of an unrelenting assault on our reputation and my service to this country,” McCabe said.
“Articles too numerous to count have leveled every sort of false, defamatory and degrading allegation against us,” he said. “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. 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.”
He added, with a dramatic flourish: “No more.”
McCabe defended his actions in the investigation in 2016 of Clinton’s email server, saying that politics played no role in his decision-making and that he was attempting to pursue a probe “that people in the DOJ opposed.”
“The FBI was portrayed as caving under that pressure, and making decisions for political rather than law enforcement purposes,” he said. “Nothing was further from the truth. In fact, this entire investigation stems from my efforts, fully authorized under FBI rules, to set the record straight on behalf of the Bureau, and to make clear that we were continuing an investigation that people in DOJ opposed.”
In regard to the specific accusation that he had spoke to the media improperly about the investigation, McCabe said his contacts with the press had taken place over several days, were no secret inside the FBI and that the head of the agency was aware of his interactions with a reporter.
“The investigation subsequently focused on who I talked to, when I talked to them, and so forth,” McCabe said in the statement. “During these inquiries, I answered questions truthfully and as accurately as I could amidst the chaos that surrounded me. And when I thought my answers were misunderstood, I contacted investigators to correct them.”
He added, “But looking at that in isolation completely misses the big picture. The big picture is a tale of what can happen when law enforcement is politicized, public servants are attacked, and people who are supposed to cherish and protect our institutions become instruments for damaging those institutions and people.”