While Republicans react with apparent fury to the idea that officials speculated over whether Mike Pence and members of Donald Trump’s own cabinet—not the FBI and Department of Justice—might have sought to have him removed from office, that story wasn’t the critical point revealed in interviews with former acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe. And the critical point wasn’t that McCabe, reacting to what he saw as not just signs of conspiracy, but an open attempt to damage American institutions, opened an investigation into whether Trump was an active agent of Russia. The actual most-telling point in a day of revelations was that Republicans knew Trump was being investigated as a Russian asset. And, as CNN reports, McCabe says that he still does not know the answer to that question, telling Anderson Cooper, “I think it's possible. I think that's why we started our investigation, and I'm really anxious to see where Mueller concludes that.”
McCabe’s comment is interesting for (at least) two reasons. It indicates that he never saw evidence that contradicted the idea of Trump working to promote Russian interests over those of the U.S., but it also suggests that the special counsel didn’t pick up just the investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia, but also the counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s actions.
Perhaps that’s why Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway is more than hinting that the Mueller report will be buried so deep that no one will see the conclusions. During an interview on CNN, host Chris Cuomo suggested that Conway could return to his show and have “as much time as you want to discuss his findings.” But rather than take him up on the offer, Conway had a different response.
Conway: Let’s see if there’s a report to even discuss. And let’s see when these endless investigations actually end. The American people want their elected officials to focus on issues and my boss is.
As Republicans fuss and beat their chests over the idea that Trump’s damaging actions might not have been just a mix of ego and incompetence, but a deliberate foreign attack, Trump’s adviser is suggesting that even if the special counsel returns an answer to the question, it may never be seen.
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No matter how much fake umbrage they summon at this “coup” attempt that never was, the truth appears to be that McCabe briefed the Republican leadership on the opening of a counterintelligence investigation into Trump, and no one said a thing. No one thundered about an out-of-control FBI. No one claimed the move wasn’t justified. Devin Nunes might have tried to institute a whole series of scandals on everything from “unmasking” that didn’t happen, to FISA warrants that were perfectly valid, but on this point, on the point that the FBI informed Nunes, along with Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Richard Burr, at a very minimum, that Trump was the subject of an investigation into whether he was a Russian asset working against the interests of the nation … that didn’t earn a peep.
Apparently the “attempted coup” included Nunes and McConnell. Or—and it’s not actually clear that this isn’t more concerning—everyone, including the leadership of his own party, agreed that Trump’s behavior was so bizarre, threatening, and damaging to the United States that an investigation into whether he was acting under the control of a foreign power seemed perfectly warranted.
It’s a revelation that’s shaking enough for the GOP base that, as TPM reports, former Republican congressman and Nunes partner on the House Intelligence Committee Trey Gowdy hurried on to Fox News to say he didn’t believe it. Sort of.
Gowdy: And I will continue to not believe they knew about it unless one or the other contradicts it.
By inverting his language, Gowdy has given himself permission to disbelieve that such a briefing took place until Nunes comes out of the White House bushes to contradict his belief. But what Nunes, and McConnell, and Burr actually produced concerning this issue on Tuesday was a whole lot of silence.