FBI investigated media leak of McCabe comment about Flynn and Trump

The FBI opened an investigation into an unauthorized media leak of a comment made by former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe about former national security adviser Michael Flynn and President Trump, according to bureau documents released Monday.

The documents show that the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs received a complaint about an alleged leak that involved “a statement overheard in early February 2017.”

{mosads}“Specifically, the alleged comments were made by DD AG McCabe and pertained to General Michael T. Flynn and the POTUS,” one document states.

The investigation into the unauthorized media disclosure appears to have started on March 20, 2017.

The document states that McCabe was a witness in the investigation, and that the subject, or the person who leaked the comment, was unknown.

A spokesperson for McCabe declined to comment.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe earlier this year, saying the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Office of Inspector General (OIG) had found McCabe made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and “lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”

McCabe was dismissed just days before he was set to retire and would have been eligible for his pension.

The former FBI official has denied any wrongdoing, and is suing the Justice Department for wrongful termination.

The Justice Department’s inspector general referred its findings on McCabe to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., for potential criminal charges, according to an April report.

The remainder of the more than 300 pages of documents released Monday by the FBI do not share new details on the investigation into McCabe, but include testimony given before Congress by former FBI Director James Comey in 2016 and media guidelines for the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs.

The New York Times separately reported last month that McCabe wrote in a contemporaneous memo while at the bureau last spring that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested wearing a wire during his conversations with Trump and potentially invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

Rosenstein has fiercely denied the bombshell report.

This post was updated on Oct. 16 at 5:55 p.m.