Inspector General investigators and real estate records confirm Andrew McCabe and his wife were long-time neighbors and likely family friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton in Chappaqua, NY where the former President and Secretary of State still reside.

Decades before McCabe cleared Hillary in the FBI’s controversial email investigation. From recent revelations, it appears the two families — the McCabe’s and the Clinton’s — have a personal and professional alliance spanning three decades.

In fact, the McCabe’s lived a half- mile away from the Bill and Hillary for years while Andrew worked as a supervisor with the New York FBI field office in Manhattan. McCabe likely withheld or “masked” this key information from FBI brass who examined his family’s relationship with Hillary Clinton during a conflict-of-interest probe of McCabe, officials said.

Federal law enforcement officials said the revelation that the Clinton’s and McCabe’s were neighbors and likely family friends long before 2016 was uncovered by a mortgage loan McCabe secured from the Justice Department’s federal credit union. It was the loan that revealed the McCabe’s previous residence in Chappaqua to Inspector General officials, sources said.

“(Andrew) McCabe knew Bill Clinton long before the 2016 race and may have been closer friends than many of us realized,” one FBI insider said. “But from what we know he didn’t divulge that when he was being looked at after the Wall Street Journal uncovered Jill’s (wife’s) campaign money from Clinton donors and associates.”

After it was publicized that his wife took $1.5 million in campaign money from Hillary Clinton-backed associates to run for office, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was investigated for conflicts of interest by James Comey and FBI brass who cleared the now-fired FBI executive.

Even though McCabe had direct oversight of the Hillary email investigation — and his wife had taken the funds — FBI officials said McCabe assured top officials he did not steer the Clinton criminal investigation as a favor to help clear the then-presidential candidate. McCabe maintained he and his family were not linked to the Clinton family.

That appears to be untrue, officials said. From recent revelations, it appears the two families have a personal and professional alliance spanning three decades.

The two families were neighbors while Hillary was running for U.S. Senate in New York in 2000. And while Jill McCabe was involved with Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign as a volunteer, now federal investigators want to know if she worked on Clinton’s 2000 campaign for U.S. Senate. Or Hillary’s successful re-election campaign for Senate in 2006.

So just how did the FBI’s McCabe — who lived a half-mile from the Clinton’s for years in an exclusive New York hamlet of 1,400 residents — end up running the criminal investigation of his former neighbor and apparent family friend Hillary Clinton?

What are the odds?

And what was the entire relationship between the McCabe’s and Clinton’s during the late 1990s and mid 2000s when these families lived down the road from each other?

We now know McCabe and FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok who led the Hillary Clinton email investigation, concealed damaging evidence for weeks just before the 2016 election.

Also, did Andrew McCabe play a role in tipping off Bill Clinton about then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s location to facilitate the infamous pre-election tarmac meeting? Only a handful of FBI brass knew of her itinerary, as an elite FBI squad is in charge of providing security for the attorney general. Days after the meeting, Lynch and Comey cleared Hillary of criminal charges from the email investigation supervised by McCabe.

The official spin to date has been this: The McCabe’s attended a meeting in 2015 with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe who asked Jill McCabe, a physician, to run for an open Virginia senate seat. Andrew was at the meeting as well. She agreed and then received over $1.25 million from PACs and bundlers linked to Hillary Clinton, including McAuliffe, who at the time was also the target of an active FBI investigation.

But now investigators said the relationship between the McCabe’s and Clinton’s stretches as far back as 1999 when, again, the families were neighbors after the Clinton’s moved from the White House to Chappaqua, N.Y. The McCabe’s had just moved to Chappaqua months earlier, records show.

How did this slip through the FBI? Or did FBI brass know the families were long-time friends when McCabe was assigned to oversee the criminal investigation of Hillary?

“It’s one issue if they were neighbors,” one FBI insider said. “It’s another completely different issue if (Andrew) McCabe hid that from supervisors. You’d have to ask why?”

A family friend running your criminal investigation. Hard to beat that edge from the perspective of a criminal suspect. Certainly a rigged game, most would argue.

“It used to be the mere appearance on impropriety was enough to establish a conflict of interest,” one FBI agent said. “Now the line is blurred. What happened here certainly appears to cross the line. You have to look at things like did McCabe’s wife treat the Clintons as a physician during that time or members of their family, relatives. Things like that should be looked at too.”

The optics do not reflect well on the embattled Bureau.

Dr. Jill McCabe, an emergency-room physician and supervisor, was licensed to practice medicine in 1997 in New York state, according to records, while the two families were neighbors. She now practices in Virginia.

Were any of these details even discussed prior to the FBI brass when it issued a rare internal FBI memo to all employees clearing McCabe of any conflict of interest linked to the Clintons?

Veteran agents have their doubts.

“If this was investigated properly, McCabe would have never been allowed near the Hillary Clinton investigation,” one FBI agent said.

But the FBI didn’t maintain a list of McCabe’s previous residences? It’s hard to believe any serious internal investigation wouldn’t uncover the fact that the two families lives almost next-door to each other during crucial years in McCabe’s FBI career and Hillary’s first political campaigns.

“The official address shows up as New Castle, New York in many filings,” one FBI source said. “It could have flown under the radar for years. On paper with the county (Westchester), it is called New Castle, not Chappaqua.”

But Comey didn’t know McCabe was neighbors with the Clinton’s before he put the deputy director in charge of her criminal investigation? It seems hard to swallow, even for FBI agents. And the public.

Comey already knew McCabe had failed to disclose his wife’s connections to Clinton-backed campaign money on his FBI financial disclosure form. And that McCabe did not list any salary for his wife who was and remains employed as a physician.

Did Comey look the other way when it came to McCabe’s long alliance with the Clinton’s too?

Did this play a role in Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent firing of McCabe?

In a recent op-ed written by Jill McCabe in the Washington Post, she railed against President Trump for ruining her husband’s FBI career and embarrassing her professionally for Tweeting about the campaign money she took from Hillary-backed bundlers. She, however, made no mention that her and the Clinton’s were neighbors in New York and likely family friends. Or that she worked on Hillary’s campaign. Or possibly multiple campaigns.

The FBI used to be concerned with optics and held its agents to high standards when it came to conflicts and impropriety.

Now a family friend apparently gets to run the FBI’s most high-profile investigation of a suspect in decades. And help clear friends of criminal wrongdoing.

Optics.