McCabe asks for crowdsourcing funds to help with legal defense

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is seeking donations from the public to assist with his legal defense amid congressional inquiries and possible lawsuits against him.

A GoFundMe page was originally set up to raise $150,000 for the effort, but the target was increased to $250,000 on Thursday. An update to the page stated that "The response to this effort has been remarkable and beyond our expectations. As a result, we have raised the goal."

The crowdsourcing plea states that "Andrew McCabe's FBI career was long, distinguished, and unblemished. He embraced the most daunting, difficult, and important challenges that the FBI and the country could assign to him over the past 21 years. He served the United States with courage and distinction in the days following the President's summary dismissal of former Director James Comey, in one of the most tumultuous periods in the Bureau's history."

It continues: "His reward for that has been a termination that was completely unjustified, amidst repeated ad hominem attacks by the President of the United States."

Less than two days short of what would have been his early retirement, McCabe was fired on March 16 by Attorney General Jeff Sessions related to allegations of misconduct by the former deputy director.

An internal review conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz reportedly concludes that McCabe misled officials during an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

According to Sessions, the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility "reviewed the report and underlying documents and issued a disciplinary proposal recommending the dismissal of Mr. McCabe. Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked condor - including under oath - on multiple occasions."

McCabe defended himself in a statement, saying "Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the action I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey," calling the investigation of him "part of an unprecedented effort by the Administration, driven by the President himself, to remove me from my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension that I worked 21 years to earn."

One week after his dismissal, McCabe wrote an op-ed further explaining his position in the Washington Post.

In March 2017, it was discovered that McCabe failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds his wife received in her unsuccessful Virginia state Senate race from two years prior. The donations included contributions from a Hillary Clinton ally, raising questions about McCabe's ability to conduct an objective investigation of the Clinton Foundation.