Hot on the heels of Andrew McCabe turning to GoFundMe (which isn’t supposed to allow fundraising for criminal defense) to raise money for his legal defense fund, we are given a harsh reminder of why McCabe was fired. He was fired because, in this rare instance, the FBI decided to treat a member of the upper echelons exactly the same way they treat FBI agents. And they decided to treat him with kid gloves in comparison to how Joe Q. Citizen would be treated under similar circumstances.

Via FoxNews:

A new FBI report allegedly says that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lied four times about leaking information to the Wall Street Journal about the FBI, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) revealed on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“He didn’t lie just once; he lied four times,” Jordan told host Laura Ingraham on Thursday. “He lied to James Comey. He lied to [the FBI’s] Office of Professional Responsibility, and he lied twice under oath to the inspector general,” Jordan said.

As I noted after his sickening and self-serving op-ed in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago, he can’t even deny he lied.

To put it in further context, The Daily Beast has an interview with a former FBI counterintelligence agent and the subject of McCabe’s firing comes up:

Nothing unusual happened to Andy McCabe. It’s not unusual for the FBI’s Office of Personal Responsibility and the DOJ inspector general to scrutinize the behavior of FBI personnel when there is a question about whether they acted appropriately. It’s not unusual for an employee to be dismissed just before their retirement benefits vest. It’s also not unusual for a dismissed employee to plead for time to retire, or for that plea to be rejected as it was for McCabe.

What’s unusual if for it to happen to someone on McCabe’s lever. The “usual” for someone that high up is for action on the case to be delayed long enough to allow him to retire fully vested. That exception action wasn’t done for McCabe. He was treated like a member of the rank-and-file. And that’s the only unusual thing here. Consequently, I don’t see Trump exercising “illegal command influence” because if he was influencing the process here, it was to ensure the improper privilege often accorded senior FBI executives didn’t happen here.

What happened to Andy McCabe is not unusual, and sadly, what Andy McCabe did is not that unusual either. FBI employees usually get fired for lying.

Let’s put this to rest.

Andrew McCabe has received preferential treatment because he’s an FBI employee. A non-FBI person would have been arrested for lying to federal officers. The fact that he was fired rather than being allowed to retire is a feature, not a bug. A man so lacking in integrity that he flouts the Hatch Act and lies to internal investigators should not be allowed to retire. He should be punished.