Several former FBI officials pointed to the 1990s, when then-Director Louis Freeh instituted a “bright line” policy with regards to ethics violations, in response to a number of scandals that had embarrassed the bureau, including agents’ mishandling of the Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents. A 2002 Inspector General’s report states that Freeh felt that “the FBI had been too tolerant of certain types of behavior that are fundamentally inconsistent with continued FBI employment,” including “lying under oath, voucher fraud, theft, and material falsification of investigative activity or reporting.” From then on, such violations would be treated as fireable offenses.

“If you have a candor violation, that is treated much more severely than other things that might be more serious, like a DUI,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “You have to be able to back up your statements, and if you don’t have good candor, you can’t go jamming people up for lying to federal agents.”

McCabe has denied that he was untruthful to investigators. “The OIG’s focus on me and this report became a part of an unprecedented effort by the administration, driven by the president himself, to remove me from my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension that I worked 21 years to earn,” McCabe said in a statement released after the firing. “This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally. It is part of this Administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day.” Special Counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating whether anyone associated with the Trump campaign had links to or coordinated with Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, and whether the president sought to obstruct that investigation.

Former FBI and Justice Department officials I spoke to stressed the professionalism of the officials in charge of the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility, whose recommendations Sessions said he was following when he fired McCabe. But these former officials, some of whom did not want to be quoted so as not to insert themselves into the controversy, also said they believed the timing of McCabe’s dismissal was suspicious. Candor cases can drag on for months, they said, in part because they can turn on a difference in perception—whether an employee understood the question, or answered to the best of their knowledge, or simply failed to recall something—and often when someone is close to retirement, that person will simply be allowed to retire.

“It’s so weird to rush this right before his retirement, because we don’t really know what the resolution was of the report,” said Watts. “If they didn’t close the entire OPR report, then why are they rushing to fire someone who was caught up in it? It’s so odd that it was so hurried, and it can’t be for anything other than political reasons.”