On Sunday, The Federalist‘s senior editor Mollie Hemingway reminded mainstream media reporters, claiming that FBI Deputy Andrew McCabe’s firing was vindictive, that he was under investigation before Donald Trump became President.

HEMINGWAY: It is really important I think for mainstream journalists to tell this story accurately. Andrew McCabe was under investigation before Trump was even taking office. The Office of Professional Ethics found that he was in need of being fired. Yes, there are a lot of other issues. He was involved in quite a few leaks during the Trump administration, and I think Trump takes that quite personally, but this is separate from that. This is about the FBI’s career personnel and the Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility saying this guy should be fired.

As Guy Benson of Townhall notes:

TRENDING: FBI Agent Who Uncovered Weiner Laptop with Hillary's Emails says FBI Leadership Told Him to Erase All of His Findings

McCabe’s firing came as the result of information gleaned by the Justice Department’s nonpartisan Inspector General. Michael Horowitz was appointed to that position by President Barack Obama and was confirmed by a Democratic Senate. Not only that, his discovery of McCabe’s apparent wrongdoing (unauthorized media leaking, about which McCabe later “lacked candor” with investigators) came in the context of a sprawling IG examination of the FBI’s handling of various Clinton-related scandals and investigations in the run-up to the 2016 election. That investigation was demanded by Democrats, who cheered its announcement (McCabe’s current lawyer even referred to the probe as “welcome news” in a Washington Post op/ed). Also, when did that soon-to-be-concluded investigation commence? Early January 2017, before Donald Trump took office. To recap: McCabe’s fireable misconduct was unearthed by a Democrat-demanded inquiry that was launched during the Obama presidency, led by an Obama-appointed and Democrat-confirmed watchdog.

Last Friday evening, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe on the recommendation of FBI disciplinary officials.

“Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions,” Sessions said in a statement.

According to The New York Times and Washington Post, Inspector General Michael Horowitz is set to accuse McCabe of not only leaking to the media, but then misleading the Justice Department about it.

The New York Times reported:

A Justice Department review is expected to criticize the former F.B.I. deputy director, Andrew G. McCabe, for authorizing the disclosure of information about a continuing investigation to journalists, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.

The disgraced FBI official reportedly authorized a leak to the Wall Street Journal, leading to an October 2016 article revealing an internal dispute between FBI and Justice Department officials about how to handle the Clinton email investigation after discovering classified emails on former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop.