When Donald Trump fired James Comey, he was careful to do it when the former FBI director was safely out of town. That way Trump could have his bodyguard, Keith Schiller, carefully sneak a letter onto Comey’s desk without having to face him. It wasn’t just an opportunity for Trump to display outstanding levels of both cowardice and jackassery, there was another petty bit of revenge behind his timing.
The day after he fired James Comey as director of the FBI, a furious President Donald Trump called the bureau's acting director, Andrew McCabe, demanding to know why Comey had been allowed to fly on an FBI plane from Los Angeles back to Washington after he was dismissed, according to multiple people familiar with the phone call.
Trump seriously attempted to catch Comey on the West Coast, where he had traveled to speak to a local FBI office, and leave him stranded, just to rub a little more salt into the insulting way he had been fired. That McCabe had allowed Comey to come home led to Trump spewing anger at the man he had just made Acting FBI Director, including insulting McCabe’s wife.
But Trump isn’t done. He still has an opportunity to show that he’s an even bigger, uglier ass.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing a recommendation to fire the former F.B.I. deputy director, Andrew G. McCabe, just days before he is scheduled to retire on Sunday, people briefed on the matter said. Mr. McCabe was a frequent target of attack from President Trump, who taunted him both publicly and privately.
The charges against McCabe stem from his allowing agents under his charge to talk about investigating the Clinton Foundation—statements that Trump used in his campaign. Neither Comey nor McCabe is in any sense a Democratic hero. McCabe was at the center of re-opening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, which Comey approved and made public a week before the election. It’s safe to say that Trump owes his spot in the Oval Office to these two men.
But nothing, and no one, can stand between Donald Trump and a chance to be the most shallow, contemptible bastard in the room.
McCabe stepped down from his position within the FBI after it was made clear that he would be forced aside. He’s been quietly waiting out the remaining days before he hits official retirement—which would come with a pension. What Trump is trying to do now has nothing to do with removing McCabe from his role in the FBI. It has everything to do with punishing him by taking away the money he needs to support his family.
Firing Mr. McCabe, even on the recommendation of the disciplinary office, would be controversial. Among Mr. McCabe’s allies, the decision would raise the specter that Mr. Sessions was influenced by Mr. Trump’s frequent derisive comments. No deputy director in the history of the F.B.I. has been fired.
Twenty-two years at the FBI. Official retirement date on Sunday. Four days for Trump to demonstrate once again that just when you think he’s at the bottom, he breaks out a shovel.
Trump has frequently made McCabe an example of the supposedly “partisan” nature of the FBI, arguing that McCabe’s wife accepted donations from “allies of Hillary Clinton” during a political campaign. Trump has gone after McCabe, by name, in statements and tweets.
Now he has the chance to steal McCabe’s pension. And he’s taking it.