A magical thing happened to an obscure state Senate candidate in Virginia in 2015. Money came flowing like water into her campaign account, nearly $675,000. It was like a miracle.

Well, not exactly like a miracle, because it’s unlikely that this will ever be cited as grounds for sainthood.

The river of money flowed from Virginia’s Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, who just happens to be a longtime close associate of the Clintons, and who was on the board of the Clinton Foundation.

In October 2016, just weeks before the presidential election, the Wall Street Journal reported that the deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, may have been less than impartial in overseeing FBI investigations involving Hillary Clinton. Journal reporter Devlin Barrett mentioned the obscure Virginia state Senate campaign, and the generous funding it had received from Clinton ally McAuliffe.

The candidate in that race was Andrew McCabe’s wife, Jill. Mrs. McCabe didn’t win the election, but a few months later Mr. McCabe was promoted from head of the bureau’s field office in Washington, D.C., to deputy director of the FBI.

McCabe reacted to the Journal story by engineering a leak to show that he was fiercely independent and doing his job.

According to the recently released report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, McCabe instructed an FBI lawyer to tell the Journal’s reporter about a phone conversation McCabe had with a high-ranking Justice Department official. According to McCabe, the principal associate deputy attorney general called him on Aug. 12, 2016, to complain that FBI agents were taking “overt steps” in the Clinton Foundation investigation in the middle of the election campaign.

McCabe’s dramatic response, as described to the Journal, was: “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?”

With that leak, McCabe violated department policy by confirming, for the first time, that there was an active criminal investigation underway into the Clinton Foundation.

To this day, we don’t know whether that investigation is continuing or closed.

But we do know that Andrew McCabe “lacked candor,” according to the inspector general, when questioned under oath about the leak. The case has been referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office for investigation and possible criminal charges.

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Hold off on Ruth Bader Ginsburg replacement: Tom Campbell Inspector General Horowitz has been investigating the investigators to find out if the FBI or DOJ relied on “improper considerations.” So far, the IG has uncovered texts showing intense pro-Clinton bias by some in the FBI, and a strange reference to an “insurance policy” in case Trump got elected.

Did McCabe and others cook up baseless charges for an endless investigation? Are they still manipulating the story to make Trump look guilty? McCabe’s lawyer said about the criminal referral, “We are confident that, unless there is inappropriate pressure from high levels of the Administration, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will conclude that it should decline to prosecute.”

Inappropriate pressure? Can he convince people that an indictment of Andrew McCabe is simply evidence of Trump’s corruption? That should keep MSNBC’s hosts occupied for weeks. Meanwhile, the magical river of money has returned. On March 29, an online fundraising account was established for the McCabe Legal Defense Fund. It raised $554,000 in seven days, and then closed. And McCabe just signed a book deal with a major publishing house after fielding offers from multiple publishers. Sometimes it takes a village to quiet a witness.

Susan Shelley is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group. Susan@SusanShelley.com. Twitter: @Susan_Shelley.