The Justice Department on Thursday notified attorneys for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that his appeal to avoid criminal prosecution has been rejected, according to Bloomberg, citing a source close to McCabe's legal team.

The decision comes roughly a month after McCabe filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the DOJ and Attorney General William Barr, after an internal investigation into media leaks resulted in his firing.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia informed McCabe’s legal team last month that charges against McCabe were being recommended, according to a person familiar with the matter. McCabe and his legal team met with Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the U.S. attorney, Jessie Liu, on Aug. 21 to appeal the recommendation, according to the person. McCabe’s lawyers still have the right to request a meeting with Barr over the matter, the person said. -Bloomberg

The 51-year-old McCabe was fired DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a criminal referral based on findings that he "made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor - including under oath - on multiple occasions."

As we noted last month when he filed the lawsuit, McCabe authorized an F.B.I. spokesman and attorney to tell Devlin Barrett of the Wall St. Journal, just days before the 2016 election, that the FBI had not put the brakes on a separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation - at a time in which McCabe was coming under fire for his wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from Clinton proxy pal, Terry McAuliffe.

Then he lied about it to the inspector general four times.

In his defense, McCabe said said that his boss - former FBI Director James Comey, knew about and authorized the leak - a claim Comey denies.

#BREAKING: Statement from Andrew McCabe’s attorney claims McCabe told @Comey repeatedly that he was working with The Wall Street Journal. pic.twitter.com/dAptPpvvzj — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 18, 2018

Looks like McCabe will need to dig a little deeper into his $540,000 legal defense GoFundMe launched in the wake of his firing - less than two days before he was set to retire and receive his full retirement package.