U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu recommended moving forward with charges against former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, according to a report released Thursday.

Fox News reported Thursday that a source close to McCabe’s legal team said that they have received an email from the Department of Justice (DOJ), which reportedly said that the agency rejected their appeal.

The email reportedly read, “The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office.”

McCabe allegedly appealed the decision all the way up to Jeffrey Rosen, the deputy attorney general, but Rosen rejected that request.

Fox News reported that Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against McCabe.

Should federal prosecutors move forward with charges, he would become the first senior law enforcement officer involved in the Russian investigation to be prosecuted.

McCabe served as the acting FBI director after President Donald Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey.

Reports from August have suggested that an investigation by the DOJ into whether McCabe made false statements during an internal inquiry into news media leaks is in its “final stages.”

Then-Attorney General Jeff Session fired McCabe in March 2018 after the inspector general found he had frequently misstated his involvement in a leak to the Wall Street Journal regarding an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

McCabe has continued to deny any potential wrongdoing and has insisted that the inspector general’s conclusions that McCabe “lacked candor” were based on mischaracterizations and omissions. The former FBI director sued the FBI and DOJ over his firing, contending that it was politically motivated.

Investigative reporter Sara Carter wrote a report that the DOJ hopes to find McCabe’s text messages, believing that they will play a significant part in the FBI’s probe into the Trump campaign, as well as the bureau’s handling of the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s emails.

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) told Carter Monday that his committee was stalled by the FBI when it attempted to retrieve McCabe’s messages.

“The House Intelligence Committee tried to get the McCabe texts in the last Congress, but we were stonewalled,” Nunes told Carter. “This is the kind of issue that really needs more transparency. There’s been too much unnecessary secrecy surrounding the entire Russia investigation- the American people deserve to know exactly what happened.”