Meanwhile, angry McCabe fires back at increasingly vulnerable president.
Photo: Andrew McCabe served as deputy director of the FBI before stepping down, then being fired.
Photo by Andres Alonso/WUSTL Photos
While Trump himself triumphantly posted tweets celebrating his administration’s vindictive treatment of Andrew McCabe, a career FBI agent who was deliberately sacked 26 hours before he would have retired in order to deprive him of his pension and retirement benefits, Trump’s attorney John Dowd inadvertently revealed the firing is part of the White House’s broader effort to shut down Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddlng. CNN reports:
“President Donald Trump’s attorney John Dowd is calling for the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddling. ‘I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt dossier,’ Dowd told CNN in a statement, reacting to the news of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe’s firing.
“Dowd told CNN he was speaking on his own behalf, although he had earlier told the Daily Beast, which first reported the statement, that he was speaking on behalf of the President. Dowd’s comment wasn’t authorized by the President, a person close to the Trump told CNN.”
Yeah, sure it wasn’t, after those bozos figured out what this looks like. Messaging, after all, has never been one of their strong suites.
McCabe purportedly was fired for leaking information to the press about the FBI’s probe into the Clinton Foundation and then lying to his superiors about it. But McCabe was authorized to speak with the press, and says he did so in accordance with agency guidelines and with his superiors’ knowledge, who did nothing to stop him. He denies misleading DoJ investigators in subsequent interviews looking into his interactions with the media, and yesterday issued a statement directly accusing Trump and Sessions of trying to shut down the Mueller probe.
While McCabe likely will be able to get a pension later, the firing deprives him of roughly $500,000 of pension benefits and lifetime health care benefits. Normally, a fired FBI agent normally has no recourse to the courts to try to recover such benefits. But Trump and Sessions may have given federal courts jurisdiction over McCabe’s termination by violating his constitutional rights, according to multiple legal sources.
Update: Several Democratic lawmakers are offering McCabe federal employment. Read this story here.
Meanwhile, their clumsy effort to silence and discredit McCabe ensures at least two things will now happen: The Russian investigation will stay in the headlines for months to come, approaching this fall’s midterm elections, and McCabe will cooperate with Mueller.
Of course, it goes without saying that Trump eventually will fire Mueller, too. He wanted to last year, but was stopped by his aides. As he steadily rids himself of everyone on his staff with the cojones to stand up to him, this restraint will be removed; and despite all his bluster that there was no Russian meddling and his campaign didn’t collude with the Russians, after numerous indictments and plea deals, it’s now obvious that major crimes were committed by many people close to Trump, who himself has said there’s a “red line” that Mueller must not cross. It’s a certainty that Mueller will cross it, unless Trump fires him first.
That will come. So, in all likelihood, will a Democratic House majority a year from now; and there’s absolutely, positively, no doubt that firing Mueller will trigger impeachment proceedings in a Democratic-controlled House.
As for McCabe, despite Trump’s efforts to portray him as a “bad actor,” he was a career law enforcement official who rose through the ranks to the FBI’s second-highest position, so he must have done a lot right during his 21-year public service career. And even if it is ultimately determined, in an objective manner, that he made mistakes, any civilized employer would let the employee retire. By firing McCabe 26 hours before his retirement, for the express purpose of depriving him of his hard-earned pension and health benefits, Trump has shown himself to the world to be a vindictive prick. And, in the process, he very likely has further incriminated himself in the Russia probe by committing another obstruction of justice, too.