Like the mob or drug cartels
The Post asks if firing McCabe might come back to bite Trump on the ass.
Trump has now, after all, cemented the enemy status of a top-ranking official at the FBI (its No. 2) and onetime acting director. He previously did that by firing McCabe’s superior, former FBI director James B. Comey, and Comey has rewarded that decision by leaking unhelpful things and testifying about Trump in a negative light. He is now set to release a book.
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Former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter said McCabe would still be bound by confidentiality rules and can’t share anything about grand jury testimony that he may have gleaned. But he said the treatment of McCabe is without real compare.
“I would add that for me, and I think many former law enforcement personnel, it is difficult to recall any precedent for the kind of personal vindictiveness the action by the executive exhibits towards a career FBI agent like McCabe, except from the longtime targets of federal law enforcement, like the mob or drug cartels,” Cotter said. “With those criminals I noted that their hate was personal towards the agents and attorneys they thought were building cases against them. This move strikes me as very similar.”
Very, very, very similar. So similar. Verging on identical. Donald Trump is a mobster filled with hatred at the people who are onto him. He’s also, stomach-turningly, the president of the US. Every day that this grotesque nightmare continues pulls us down farther into the mire.
And it was made abundantly clear Friday night that McCabe is incensed by the decision. He released a lengthy statement deriding his firing as “slander” and arguing that the inspector general’s report was accelerated in response to his closed-door testimony saying he would corroborate key claims made by Comey. He suggested the whole thing was part of a campaign to undermine the investigations involving Trump.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the press he’s “a bad actor” on Thursday.
“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,” McCabe said. “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. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the special counsel’s work.”
But maybe the IG report will show that McCabe really is a bad actor.
Or maybe it won’t.
If the IG report shows he’s a bad actor, we’d then have to consider if the IG’s report were independent of White House interference. We shouldn’t have to ask that in a government with respect for the political independence of law enforcement, but clearly, we don’t have one of those these days.
My thoughts exactly. It’s difficult to be sure who you can trust when the administration seems to be corruption and chaos all the way down, and the president is purging anyone not deemed sufficiently loyal. Want to keep your job? You’d better find what I want you to find in your investigation.
What I read about it yesterday said it’s independent of party loyalties (words to that effect), but how true that is…I have my doubts.
But it could be that the IG report is fair but still that the mad rush to fire him, without even giving him and his lawyers time to prepare to respond, is grotesquely distant from fair. That’s what the law peeps on Twitter are saying, mostly – Wittes, Tribe, Shaub, Painter, Eisen, etc.
I did see somewhere (a couple of days back) a report saying that the IG initially said there would be only one report produced, but somehow that has morphed into two reports with this one recommending McCabe be fired being rushed out in front. It may be perfectly legit, but it smacks of either interference or someone with an axe to grind. Apparently McCabe did ruffle a few feathers during his career.
I find the gloating by Trump and the kicking by appalling dross like SHS on McCabes way out the door both unnecessary and unlike anything I ever recall other administrations doing. It just serves to underline the basic unpleasantness of them and brings questions about independence and due process into sharper focus.
From what I can gather it’s not actually true that it may be perfectly legit. The law types, including Republicans, say it’s unprecedented, iow it’s not how this is supposed to work.