Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe late Friday, ending the veteran FBI official's career just before he was scheduled to become eligible for retirement benefits and adding another explosive chapter to President Donald Trump's increasingly public battle with senior figures at the FBI.
McCabe had served at the FBI for more than two decades and briefly became acting director following Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
By early 2018, however, McCabe had become one of Trump's most frequent targets inside federal law enforcement.
The president repeatedly attacked McCabe publicly, questioned his political impartiality and drew attention to his approaching retirement.
Then, with McCabe's retirement almost at hand, Sessions fired him.
Sessions Says McCabe "Lacked Candor"
The Justice Department said the decision followed an investigation by the department's Office of Inspector General and a recommendation from the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility.
According to Sessions, investigators concluded that McCabe had authorized an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and had lacked candor on multiple occasions, including while under oath.
The controversy involved information provided to a Wall Street Journal reporter in 2016 concerning an FBI investigation related to the Clinton Foundation.
The inspector general examined both McCabe's role in authorizing the disclosure and whether he had been truthful when subsequently questioned about it.
The FBI's disciplinary office recommended that McCabe be dismissed.
Sessions accepted that recommendation.
McCabe Fires Back
McCabe strongly disputed the way his dismissal was characterized.
He argued that the disclosure at the center of the investigation had been authorized and said his firing had to be viewed in the context of Trump's repeated attacks against him.
McCabe described the episode as part of what he called the administration's "war on the FBI" and an effort to undermine his credibility.
That distinction mattered because McCabe wasn't simply another departing government official.
He was a potential witness in matters being examined by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
McCabe had been present for important events following Comey's dismissal and later maintained contemporaneous notes describing some of his interactions with Trump.
Mueller's investigation was examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election as well as whether Trump's actions involving senior law-enforcement officials constituted obstruction of justice.
McCabe argued that the attacks against him were connected to those events.
The administration rejected the suggestion that the firing was politically motivated, pointing instead to the findings of the internal disciplinary process.
Trump Celebrates
Whatever the formal process behind the dismissal, Trump made his feelings about the outcome unmistakable.
Shortly after midnight, the president publicly celebrated McCabe's firing, calling it a "great day" for FBI employees and for democracy.
Trump also attacked Comey and accused senior FBI officials of lying and corruption.
The reaction reinforced the political controversy surrounding the dismissal.
For months, Trump had publicly criticized McCabe.
In December 2017, the president even called attention to McCabe's approaching retirement, writing that the deputy director was "racing the clock to retire with full benefits."
Now the clock had stopped.
McCabe had been fired before reaching his planned retirement date.
The Battle Over the FBI
McCabe's dismissal was part of a much larger confrontation between Trump and federal law-enforcement officials involved in investigations touching his campaign and presidency.
Trump had fired Comey in May 2017.
Comey's dismissal contributed to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel.
Trump subsequently attacked the Russia investigation as politically motivated and repeatedly criticized officials associated with it.
McCabe became one of the most visible of those officials.
Trump's criticism also focused on McCabe's wife, Jill McCabe, who had unsuccessfully run as a Democrat for the Virginia state Senate in 2015 and whose campaign received substantial support from a political action committee associated with then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton ally.
Those donations became part of Trump's argument that McCabe was politically compromised.
McCabe and his defenders rejected that characterization, noting that his wife's campaign had ended before he became deputy FBI director and arguing that established FBI procedures were followed regarding potential conflicts.
An Extraordinary Ending to an FBI Career
The timing made McCabe's dismissal particularly dramatic.
After more than 20 years at the FBI, he was approaching the point at which he could retire with benefits available under federal law.
Instead, his career ended with a late-night firing.
The Justice Department maintained that the decision was the result of an internal investigation and disciplinary recommendation.
McCabe maintained that he had become a target because of his role in events surrounding Comey's firing and the Russia investigation.
Those competing explanations would continue long after McCabe left the FBI.
But on March 16, 2018, one thing was unmistakable.
Another senior law-enforcement official who had clashed with Donald Trump was gone — and the president was publicly celebrating his departure.