FBI documents show deputy director was not involved in Clinton investigation during wife's run for office, despite Trump's claims

On Friday, the FBI threw cold water on one of President Trump's favorite conspiracy claims when it released 13 pages of documents that assert that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe did not take a managing role in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails while his wife was running for office.

McCabe's wife Jill launched a campaign for Virginia's state Senate in 2015, during which she received almost half a million dollars in donations from the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a longtime friend of the Clintons. Republicans have alleged that because of that donation from McAuliffe, McCabe went easy on Clinton during the investigation into the former Democratic presidential candidate's private email server.

But the documents released Friday show McCabe did not join the email investigation until February 2016, three months after his wife had lost her bid for Virginia Senate. The FBI documents additionally show that during his wife's campaign, McCabe — who was not yet deputy director of the bureau — was warned of the possible appearance of impropriety if he worked on public corruption cases in Northern Virginia. "Out of an abundance of caution," the FBI said in April 2015, McCabe was "excluded … in all such cases."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Trump has long taken issue with McCabe's role in the Clinton investigation, implying that McAuliffe's donations to McCabe's wife's campaign actually came from the Clintons. In July, the president took to Twitter to ask why Attorney General Jeff Sessions had not yet fired McCabe.

Read the FBI documents in full here.