McCabe is out
It’s getting scary now. McCabe has resigned, and CBS says he was forced to. It looks remarkably like a scenario in which a corrupt and criminal president kneecaps law enforcement.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is retiring from the FBI, CBS News’ Pat Milton has confirmed. According to Milton, a source familiar with the matter confirms that McCabe was forced to step down. He is currently on leave and will official[ly] retire in March.
That’s bad. If Milton’s source is right that’s baaad.
McCabe was under considerable scrutiny from Republicans, as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling and any ties to Trump associates continued. McCabe took temporary charge of the FBI after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey earlier this year, and some skeptics viewed McCabe as too close to his former boss.
Too close for what? His former boss shouldn’t have been fired in the way and by the person he was. (For his actions in October 2016? Maybe he should have. But that’s not why Trump fired him.) “Too close” can only mean “for Trump’s comfort” and that should not be the criterion. If that is the criterion we’re living in an authoritarian state, officially.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1798324796852640/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1798348560183597/?type=3&theater
On the upside – he hasn’t been far from retirement, he’s still on track to get those full benefits, he won’t have to work for Jackass any longer, and – for the rest of us – he’ll be that much more free to tell Mueller and the press everything he needs to.
On the downside – career civil servants doing their jobs with skill and ethics are hounded out of their positions for reasons that are at best nakedly partisan and most likely political crime.
As I already put it on Ophelia’s FB page, what is Trump planning that can’t wait till McCabe goes early anyway? For this to happen, the pressure from Trump on his minions to get rid of McCabe “Right now!” must have been enormous.
I’m sure that Trump’s gift to McCabe’s successor (who will be hand-picked by Trump, of course. Kushner? Maybe the Princess?) will be a heavy-duty paper shredder.
AoS, I think the government already has a lot of those. They can dust off the ones Ollie North used during the Reagan administration – after all, a paper shredder is a paper shredder, and the Republicans want to keep us from wasting precious government money they can return to themselves in the form of tax cuts, so why waste money on a new one?
@Stewart #1 – Don’t even joke about that. Really.
@Stewart #3 Good question. The answer is either horrifyingly nefarious or mind-bogglingly stupid. Or both, of course.
iknklast, you’re right, of course. Unless any of Trump’s buddie’s happen to own a company selling very high-end, multi-thousands of dollars shredders.
@Claire #7
Firstly, we have to joke about it while fighting it desperately. Anything to keep ahead – barely – of the reality. Is there anything, at all, one can actually put past Trump? I can think of nothing anymore.
On the other question: you’re already going to leave your job early and then you abruptly leave it even earlier. By sheer coincidence, the president of your country has been attacking you quite a lot on Twitter just before this happens. Which is why it was necessary for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to make clear that there was no connectiion between the two. Which came off like this:
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1798807340137719/?type=3&theater
@Claire again
He can give any job to anybody for any reason. This is nearly a year old:
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1476647742353682/?type=3&theater