The Justice Department has fired the No. 2 official in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia after he declined to lead the controversial prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, according to multiple people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
Robert McBride, 64, a Justice prosecutor and former Navy lawyer, was brought into the prominent satellite office of the Justice Department to serve as first assistant to U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan and took a more prominent role as her status was in question and after a judge ruled in late November that she was not legally appointed to run the office.
McBride, a prosecutor and former supervisor in a U.S. attorney’s office in Kentucky, had been asked in recent days to run the Comey case, and told top Justice officials he felt it would be difficult to do that and also run the office, according to the people.
Halligan had also recently learned that McBride held private meetings with federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to a source familiar with McBride’s removal.
That source said the meeting was convened without Halligan’s knowledge and was viewed as undermining the administration. The offices of the attorney general and deputy attorney general supported McBride’s removal and the Executive Office of U.S Attorneys signed the paperwork to remove him.
Halligan’s role and authority to run the office has been in doubt since late November, when Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled she was not legally appointed and dismissed Halligan’s indictments of Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, in September and October, respectively.
Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.