Friends of Andrew McCabe who launched a legal defense fund last week for the fired FBI deputy director have raised more $500,000 and are ending their effort, a spokeswoman said Monday.
The Andrew McCabe Legal Defense Fund, which was established Thursday on GoFundMe, had raised almost $540,000 — more than triple its initial goal — from nearly 13,000 donors as of Monday.
The FBI’s second-in-command was fired last month for leaking and lack of candor in the Hillary Clinton email probe less than two days before he was eligible to retire early with full benefits.
According to the GoFundMe page, the fund is not for retirement purposes but solely intended for Mr. McCabe to use while dealing with a Justice Department inspector general investigation, congressional inquires and potential lawsuits.
Mr. McCabe called the support “simply overwhelming.”
“It’s not lost on me that each contribution reflects not just someone’s well-wishes but also their acknowledgement that something in this situation is not fair or just,” he said in a statement Monday.
The page is accompanied by a picture of Mr. McCabe with his wife, their two children and their dog, apparently taken at the FBI headquarters.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he dismissed McCabe last month after Justice Department officials found that he had demonstrated a “lack of candor” about his dealings with the Wall Street Journal in 2016.
In 2015 his wife, Jill McCabe, ran as a Democrat for Virginia state Senate and took considerable campaign cash from Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton ally.
Shortly afterward, her husband would oversee the Clinton email probe — a sequence that has prompted much criticism from President Trump and his supporters.
Mr. McCabe has denied he misled anyone about authorizing FBI agents to speak with the news media and has argued his firing was part of a larger effort by the White House to discredit the FBI for supporting the DOJ’s Russian election-meddling investigation.
• Victor Morton contributed to this story.
• Dan Boylan can be reached at dboylan@washingtontimes.com.
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