Fired McCabe kept notes on Trump, as Comey did, and gave them to Special Counsel Mueller

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AP: Andrew McCabe maintained memos regarding President Trump

The Associated Press is reporting that former deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe maintained personal memos regarding the president.

Newly fired FBI official Andrew McCabe kept personal memos similar to those compiled by James Comey on interactions with President Donald Trump, who axed Comey as FBI director.

The memo disclosure on Saturday, confirmed to Fox News by a source close to McCabe, comes after the onetime FBI deputy director was fired late Friday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

McCabe gave a copy of the memos, which also included what Comey told him about his interactions with Trump, to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading a federal investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 elections, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Sessions said Friday night that he acted on McCabe's termination after a Justice Department inspector general’s report, and on the recommendation of FBI disciplinary officials.

McCabe was fired two days before officially retiring and  becoming eligible to receive his full retirement.

Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat, on Saturday extended a job offer to McCabe so that he could reach is length of service and get his retirement benefits.

"Andrew McCabe’s firing makes it clear that President Trump is doing everything he can to discredit the FBI," Pocan said. "My offer of employment to Mr. McCabe is a legitimate offer to work on election security."

McCabe released a statement Friday night suggesting his firing was part of the Trump administration's "war on the FBI."

Trump praised the firing. The president suggested on Twitter that reports show McCabe "knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!" The president added that he was a “choirboy” compared with Comey.

FILe - In this June 8, 2017 file photo, former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Comey’s publisher is moving up the release date of his memoir “A Higher Loyalty,” to April 17. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) (Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A Trump tweet later in the day alleged "tremendous leaking, lying and corruption" among those leading the FBI and the departments of State and Justice.

The inspector general's report is expected to conclude that McCabe, a Comey confidant, authorized the release of information to the media and was not forthcoming with the watchdog office as it examined the bureau's handling of its inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state under President Barack Obama.

"The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and accountability," Sessions said in a statement.

McCabe maintained that his credibility had been attacked as "part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally," but also the FBI and law enforcement.

"It is part of this administration's ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the special counsel investigation, which continue to this day," he added, referring to Robert Mueller's look into whether there was coordination between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. "Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the special counsel's work."

Trump's personal lawyer, John Dowd, touting the "brilliant and courageous example" by Sessions and the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility said in a statement Saturday that the No. 2 Justice Department official, Rod Rosenstein, ought to now  "bring an end" to the Russia investigation "manufactured" by Comey.

Dowd told The AP that he was neither calling on Rosenstein, the deputy attorney government overseeing Mueller's inquiry, to fire the special counsel immediately, nor had discussed with Rosenstein the idea of dismissing Mueller or ending the probe.

McCabe, in reacting to his untimely termination, asserted he was singled out because of the "role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath" of Comey's firing last May. McCabe became acting director after that and assumed direct oversight of the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign.

Mueller is investigating whether Trump's actions, including Comey's ouster, constitute obstruction of justice. McCabe could be an important witness.

Trump, in a tweet early Saturday, said McCabe's firing was "a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI -- A great day for Democracy." He said "Sanctimonious James Comey," as McCabe's boss, made McCabe "look like a choirboy."

McCabe said the release of the findings against him was accelerated after he told congressional officials that he could corroborate Comey's accounts of certain conversations with the president.

McCabe spent more than 20 years as a career FBI official and played key roles in some of the bureau's most recent significant investigations.

Even so, Trump has repeatedly condemned him over the past year as emblematic of an FBI leadership he contends is biased against his administration.

McCabe had been on leave from the FBI since January, when he abruptly left the deputy director position. He had planned to retire on Sunday, and the dismissal probably jeopardizes his ability to collect his full pension benefits.

His removal could add to the turmoil that has enveloped the FBI since Comey's firing and as the FBI continues its Trump campaign investigation that the White House has dismissed as a hoax.

The firing arises from an inspector general review into how the FBI handled the Clinton email investigation. That inquiry focused not only on specific decisions made by FBI leadership, but also on news media leaks.

McCabe came under scrutiny over an October 2016 news report that revealed differing approaches within the FBI and Justice Department over how aggressively the nonprofit  Clinton Foundation should be investigated.

The watchdog office has concluded that McCabe authorized FBI officials to speak to a Wall Street Journal reporter for that story, and that McCabe had not been forthcoming with investigators. McCabe has issued denials.

In his statement, McCabe said he had the authority to share information with journalists through the public affairs office, a practice he said was common and continued under the current FBI director, Christopher Wray. McCabe said he honestly answered questions about whom he had spoken to and when, and that when he thought his answers were misunderstood, he contacted investigators to correct them.

The media outreach came at a time when McCabe said he was facing public accusations of partisanship and followed reports that his wife, during a run for the State Senate in Virginia, had received campaign contributions from a Clinton ally. McCabe suggested in his statement that he was trying to "set the record straight" about the FBI's independence against the background of those allegations.

With the FBI disciplinarians recommending the firing, Justice Department leaders were in a difficult situation. Sessions, whose job status has for months appeared shaky under his own blistering criticism from Trump, risked inflaming the White House if he decided against firing McCabe.

But a decision to dismiss McCabe days before his retirement nonetheless carried the risk of angering his rank-and-file supporters at the FBI.

McCabe became entangled in presidential politics in 2016 when it was revealed that his wife, during her unsuccessful legislative run, received campaign contributions from the political action committee of then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton friend.

The FBI has said McCabe received the necessary ethics approval about his wife's candidacy and was not supervising the Clinton investigation at the time.

But Trump pounded away on Twitter on Saturday: "How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife's campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M ... How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!"

The Associated Press contributed to this report.