Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Thursday launched an online fundraiser to help cover the legal costs that might come as he navigates investigations and congressional inquiries, and explores whether he will sue over his abrupt ouster from the bureau.
McCabe’s team unveiled the legal defense fund, hosted on the GoFundMe website, about 1 p.m. By 5 p.m., it had raised more than $147,600 toward its original $150,000 goal, prompting the overall goal to be raised to $250,000
Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe from the FBI about two weeks ago, ending McCabe’s more than 20-year career just 26 hours before McCabe could retire and begin collecting his full retirement benefits. The move is likely to cut into his pension, though McCabe’s team said money raised for the legal defense fund will not be used “for anything beyond his defense of the allegations against him.”
“He will continue to fight for the pension and benefits he deserves, rather than accept any crowdfunding for that purpose,” his team wrote on his GoFundMe page. His team said that after any legal proceedings were over, whatever remained in the fund would be donated to charity. Soon after McCabe’s firing, his team noted that there were a number of crowd-funding sites claiming to be raising money in his name, but none was affiliated with him.
Sessions said he fired Mc-Cabe over findings from the Justice Department inspector general that McCabe had authorized an inappropriate disclosure to the media, then allegedly misled investigators about it. The FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility had recommended the termination.
But McCabe, who disputes the inspector general’s conclusions, shot back that his firing was politically motivated, meant to undermine the FBI and its high-profile investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election. President Donald Trump had openly attacked McCabe over donations that his wife, who ran as a Democrat for a Virginia state Senate seat, took from a political action committee of Terry McAuliffe, an ally of Hillary Clinton.