Donald Trump attempted to force FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe—an attempt that ended with Wray threatening to resign, and Trump backing down. According to Axios …
Wray's resignation under those circumstances would have created a media firestorm. The White House — understandably gun-shy after the Comey debacle — didn’t want that scene, so McCabe remains.
Pressure was applied to Wray through a route that’s becoming familiar: Trump had White House Attorney Don McGahn threaten Attorney General Jefferson Sessions. Sessions then began to lean on Wray until Wray made it clear that if Sessions didn’t back off, he was leaving. When that was relayed back through McGahn, Trump dropped his attempt to oust McCabe.
McCabe is expected to retire in the spring, clearing the slot for Trump to insert someone he thinks will give him proper allegiance. But Trump has been determined to stop McCabe from retiring peacefully by pushing him out only days before he would reach full pension benefits.
That level of open pettiness and spitefulness seems excessive—for anyone other than Trump. But Trump has been out to hurt the Deputy Director since McCabe became Acting FBI Director after Trump fired James Comey for the twin crimes of refusing to drop the Russia investigation and failing to swear fealty to Trump. McCabe proved no more tractable than Comey, and since then, McCabe has been a frequent target for Trump’s frustration. Trump’s attacks on McCabe have included false accusations about his wife’s campaign, claims that McCabe was responsible for no charges being filed against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server, and claims that McCabe used his FBI office for political purposes.
But in the race between McCabe and Trump, it appears that McCabe is going to win.
On Monday evening, Trump’s White House issued a statement to explain why it was okay to start a chain of skullduggery aimed at continued disruption in the FBI.
He believes politically-motivated senior leaders including former Director Comey and others he empowered have tainted the agency's reputation for unbiased pursuit of justice.
The statement actually flips the situation upside down, as what’s unusual in this situation isn’t anything inside the FBI, but how much Trump has been willing to interfere with the FBI’s day to day function.
Trump’s frustration that the FBI refuses to be his own personal Stasi was still evident on Tuesday morning as he attempted to rekindle a story from an ordinary agent’s person texts to his love interest.
Wow … what? There’s nothing to indicate that anything Strzok wrote in those texts affected Trump, Clinton, the Russia investigation or anything of note. That the guy who paid off multiple porn stars is reduced to pointing at someone’s mash notes only shows how little evidence there is of any conspiracy within the FBI.
But there’s certainly everything to show that Trump continues his efforts to disrupt and distort the efforts of the FBI.
