Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe accused the Trump administration of withholding key evidence in a Tuesday court filing, saying that the government was blocking information in his wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
A declaration in the case filed Tuesday evening accuses 30 senior officials – including Attorney General Bill Barr, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and President Trump – of ignoring requests for evidence in the case.
“To date Plaintiff has had no opportunity to take discovery,” the filing reads.
Written by McCabe attorney Murad Hussain, the filing states that while McCabe has “assembled a small set of supporting evidence from his own records and from publicly available sources,” the former FBI official needs far more records from the government to win the case.
“However, much of the relevant evidence in this case is in Defendants’ exclusive possession or the possession of current or former government officials,” the filing reads.
McCabe sued the Justice Department and FBI over accusations that his March 2018 termination was a politically motivated effort to rid him of his job and retirement benefits. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions sacked McCabe days before the longtime law enforcement official was scheduled to retire.
The filing asks U.S. District Judge Randy Moss of Washington, D.C., to force the Justice Department, FBI, White House, and other agencies and officials to provide McCabe with the evidence he requests.
The evidence requests appear to include a suggestion that McCabe’s team believes the Trump administration selectively released evidence to a Justice Department inspector general investigation into media leaks.
McCabe wants records “relating to decisions to omit exculpatory evidence … from the OIG Report and disciplinary decisions.”
