Andrew McCabe's case referred to federal prosecutors

A lawyer for Andrew McCabe, the former acting director of the FBI, said on Thursday that the Justice Department inspector general's office has sent federal prosecutors a criminal referral regarding McCabe.

The inspector general released a report saying that in 2016, McCabe misled investigators who were trying to figure out who disclosed information to a Wall Street Journal reporter about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation; McCabe has called the accusations "egregious inaccuracies." McCabe was fired last month by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, while the inspector general's office was still working on its report and just before he was eligible for full retirement benefits.

McCabe's lawyer, Michael Bromwich, told The New York Times he's "confident that, unless there is inappropriate pressure from high levels of the administration, the U.S. attorney's office will conclude that it should decline to prosecute." McCabe asserts that the report and his firing are meant to discredit him as a witness in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether President Trump obstructed justice while trying to interfere with the Russia probe.

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