Aruna Viswanatha reports for the WSJ:
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told colleagues Monday he would leave his post effective immediately, according to a person familiar with the matter, after becoming a lightning rod for criticism from President Donald Trump and some congressional Republicans.
Mr. McCabe plans to take "terminal leave"--using leftover vacation time--until he is eligible in March to retire from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the person.* * *The White House said Mr. Trump played no role in Mr. McCabe's decision to step down. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president wasn't part of the "decision-making process" with respect to Mr. McCabe's departure.* * *Mr. McCabe first came under fire from Republicans in 2016 as a result of his supervisory role in the FBI investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's email server.
The alleged conflict of interest came after his wife, Dr. Jill McCabe, ran for Virginia state senate with financial support from the political organization of then- Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and longtime ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Decencyevolves: per media reports
“The day after he fired James Comey as director of the FBI, a furious President Donald Trump called the bureau's acting director, Andrew McCabe, demanding to know why Comey had been allowed to fly on an FBI plane from Los Angeles back to Washington after he was dismissed, according to multiple people familiar with the phone call.
McCabe told the president he hadn’t been asked to authorize Comey’s flight, but if anyone had asked, he would have approved it, three people familiar with the call recounted to NBC News.
The president was silent for a moment and then turned on McCabe, suggesting he ask his wife how it feels to be a loser — an apparent reference to a failed campaign for state office in Virginia that McCabe’s wife made in 2015.
McCabe replied, “OK, sir.” Trump then hung up the phone. A White House official, who would not speak on the record, disputed the account, saying, "this simply never happened . . . . After he fired Comey, Trump met with McCabe in the Oval Office, and, according to The Washington Post, asked McCabe whom he voted for in the 2016 election. McCabe said he did not vote, the Post reported.
More recently, when reports surfaced last month that McCabe planned to retire in March after he’s eligible for full benefits, Trump seized on the news. ‘FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!’ the president wrote on Twitter.“
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/amp/trump-s-gripes-against-mccabe-included-wife-s-politics-comey-n842161?__twitter_impression=true
Does anyone here find that kind of behavior by the President disturbing?
I find a great many things that have happened over the last two years disturbing. The sources are all over the political map, and the now-departed Mr. McCabe is the source of some of the most disturbing behavior.
The version of the disputed conversation "per media reports" would be disturbing if true. However, there were only two parties to the conversation, and the White House denies the reports, so the version reported by the media must have come directly or indirectly from a person whose credibility has now hit absolute zero.