Before joining the FBI, McCabe was a private practice lawyer. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from Duke in 1990 and his juris doctor degree from Washington University School of Law in 1993.
McCabe started with the FBI as a special agent in 1996 in the New York division, where he investigated organized crime cases.
In 2003 he was named supervisory special agent of the Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force, a joint operation with the NYPD.
He was promoted in 2006 to the FBI headquarters as unit chief of extraterritorial investigations of Sunni extremist targets, focusing on counterterrorism. He eventually became assistant section chief of International Terrorism Operations Section One, responsible for counterterrorism investigations in the U.S.
In 2008, McCabe was named assistant special agent of the Washington field office’s counterterrorism division.
He was named the first director of the High-Value Interrogation Group in 2009.
McCabe was named deputy assistant director in 2011, overseeing international terrorism investigations at the Counterterrorism Division at FBI headquarters.
He became acting director of the FBI after the firing of James Comey on May 9, 2017. McCabe held the position for three months.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday that Donald Trump was not part of McCabe’s decision to step down.
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