MSNBC: McCabe Stepping Down as FBI Deputy Director Sooner than Anticipated

EXCERPT:

WILLIAMS: "A big one but an expected one, Andrea. This involves the Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who as you recall was acting director when James Comey was fired. And now he’s back in his role as the deputy director with Christopher Wray in charge. He’s been the subject of repeated criticism by President Trump because of the activities of his wife running for office and getting contributions from a political group associated with Hillary Clinton. There were questions about whether he was neutral therefore in the investigation of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, and of course the FBI has always insisted the two are separate. Nonetheless, this has made him a target of some criticism. I'm backing into the news story here, Andrea, the news is that he’s stepping down as the deputy director sooner than anticipated. He has made no secret of the fact for several years, in fact, well before President Trump was elected, that he would leave the FBI when he was eligible for retirement, which in the FBI is a combination of age plus time in service to the bureau. He would be eligible for that in mid-March. His plan is to leave the FBI in mid March -- that’s always been his plan. But now the new thing here is that he is -- he is stepping down in his role as the deputy director. He has enough time in the bureau that he’s acquired considerable amount of leave. So he’ll in essence go into a terminal leave posture here and continue on the FBI payroll as the original plan was until the time of his retirement. But for now, he has decided to step down in his role as the FBI deputy director. No reason is given here. We can -- we can speculate on maybe why he wanted to do this, partly perhaps because of the criticism from the president, and partly because, perhaps, he was anticipating the report from the inspector general, which is the Justice Department’s inspector general, which was started well over a year ago, announced shortly after the inauguration that the the IG would look at how the FBI conducted the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, and undoubtedly, he perhaps is anticipating that his name will be prominent when that report coming out. In any event, Andrea, he is moving forward his plan to step down as deputy director, always intended to do it here coming up shortly, but has moved it up by a month or so."