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According to a report Monday from Axios, President Donald Trump ordered FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire the deputy director, Andrew McCabe.
Why is McCabe still at the FBI?
The report says that Wray objected to the order and told the president that if McCabe were fired, he'd retire as well.
Since the administration was already under fire for jettisoning James Comey from the FBI, the report explains, Trump backed down from his order.
Axios reports that White House Counsel Don McGahn told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that it wasn't worth seeing Wray retire just to fire McCabe after Sessions told him how agitated Wray was over the proposed ousting of McCabe.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice declined to comment on the report.
A campaign against McCabe
The president and his allies have led a campaign against McCabe amidst accusations that he colluded with FBI official Peter Strzok to undermine the president.
Trump has used his Twitter account to criticize McCabe:
Why didn't A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got....— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1501076882.0
And his allies have pointed to texts released from FBI official Peter Strzok that seem to imply McCabe had sympathies with the anti-Trump cause.
.@FoxNews-FBI’s Andrew McCabe, “in addition to his wife getting all of this money from M (Clinton Puppet), he was u… https://t.co/fRprD7LwtJ— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1514118322.0
In December, the president tweeted another accusation that McCabe was biased for Hillary Clinton while he was in charge of the investigation into her private email account during the presidential election.
Another report said that McCabe was considering retiring in the coming months.
