Now former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe is not the bad guy, if it were to come down to a comparison between he and Donald Trump.
I abhor arrogant, uncivil, low behavior, especially coming from elected officials, and our president has a lack of decent upbringing and low impulse control.
After news that McCabe is taking his saved up vacation days and stepping down from his position, earlier than planned, even more details of the prickly relationship between Trump and McCabe emerged.
To be clear, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denies the White House had anything to do with McCabe’s exit.
Is McCabe now leaking details?
Maybe.
NBC News is reporting that the day after James Comey was fired, Trump phoned then-Acting FBI Director McCabe to ask why Comey was allowed to catch a ride back to Washington from Los Angeles (where he at a speaking engagement and learned of his firing from a news report).
He wanted Comey left to figure out his own way home. McCabe was a little too straight with him.
According to sources (and I’m guessing McCabe was a source):
Trump demanded to know why Comey was allowed to fly on an FBI plane after he had been fired, these people said. McCabe told the president he hadn’t been asked to authorize Comey’s flight, but if anyone had asked, he would have approved it, three people familiar with the call recounted to NBC News.
I’m assuming the FBI plane took him there.
Then of course, showing those New York city values, and his absolute inability to maintain any level of decency, things just went downhill from there.
The president was silent for a moment and then turned on McCabe, suggesting he ask his wife how it feels to be a loser — an apparent reference to a failed campaign for state office in Virginia that McCabe’s wife made in 2015.
McCabe replied, “OK, sir.” Trump then hung up the phone.
Was that necessary?
It was vile. It was juvenile. It was petty.
It was not necessary. McCabe’s family were not part of the job and if Trump supporters get so bent out of shape over anyone pointing out Trump’s wife’s lesbian porn shots, they had better not defend this.
This all gives more weight to previous reports of Trump asking McCabe who he voted for. It also seems very much in line with the series of shots Trump has taken at McCabe in his Twitter tantrums.
How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017
In recent weeks the White House has agitated for McCabe’s exit, saying he is part of a broader pattern of bias against the president in the highest levels of federal law enforcement. Defenders of the Justice Department’s leadership say the charges of bias are part of the president’s effort to try to undermine the federal probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
The phone call between Trump and McCabe after Comey’s firing last May underscores the president’s continued fixation on where the loyalties of people around him may lie and his frustration with autonomous arms of the government — particularly ones involved in the Russia investigation. It’s also emblematic of his early and persistent distrust of top Justice Department officials.
It can’t be a good thing when there’s so much animosity between the chief executive and the departments responsible for keeping the nation safe.
Trump’s quest for personal loyalty, over loyalty to the job is going to have a chilling effect on the job the FBI, as well as the Justice Department were formed to do.
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