February 20, 2019
Andrew McCabe the former Deputy Director, and Acting Director of the FBI is making the rounds to promote his book entitled “The Threat” -How the FBI protects America in the age of Terror and Trump. The main takeaway-the claims by many on the right that our intelligence agencies have been weaponized to prevent/destroy a legitimately elected president have been confirmed by McCabe.
As a reminder, it was in the office of then Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe where Lisa Page, then an attorney with the FBI, and then FBI agent Peter Strzok discussed an “insurance policy” in the context of preventing Trump from being elected president, as revealed in text messages between Page and Strzok. At the time when these texts were uncovered, The Wall Street Journal reported that the “insurance policy” was the Russia probe.
In his interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, McCabe admits that in the days following then FBI Director James Comey’s dismissal, he was responsible for the opening of an FBI investigation, which was a dual counterintelligence /criminal investigation into President Trump; and he actively encouraged Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel (Comey has also admitted to orchestrating a leaked memo with the intent of prompting a special counsel investigation). McCabe claimed that these probes were precipitated by the fear that Trump may have won the presidency with the help of Russia, and may be a “Russian asset”.
In defense of the numerous Trump- Russia collusion investigations pundits often make the claim that the public does not have access to all of the evidence seen by those in charge of the investigations. However, in May 2017, when McCabe was working behind the scenes advocating for a special counsel investigation, evidence indicates that there was no justification for such a probe.
According to 28 CFR 600.1 an attorney general can only appoint a special counsel when it is determined that there is evidence of a crime. A text message sent by Strzok, the FBI agent in charge of the Trump-Russia FBI probe opened in July 2016 dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane, belies the claim that evidence of a possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia existed.
In a text exchange on May 19, 2017, two days after Mueller was asked to oversee the investigation into collusion, Strzok was asked by Page if he would stay with the FBI or consider joining Mueller’s team. The man who was at the helm of a year-long Trump-Russia collusion FBI probe, responded “You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”
When these texts were discovered many speculated that Strzok was referring to a lack of evidence against the Trump campaign. In July of last year that question was answered when Lisa Page was questioned in a closed-door hearing by members of Congress.
According to reporting by Jon Solomon of the Hill, Page reluctantly admitted “that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case.” So the FBI agent, in charge of a ten month long counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign, didn’t believe that there was any “there there” regarding Russia collusion, yet, somehow McCabe felt justified to open a criminal probe into the President of the United States, and Rosenstein believed a special counsel to investigate the president was warranted.
Strzok’s many private text exchanges, discovered by the inspector general investigating the FBI handling of probes related to the election, revealed a venomous hatred for Trump, by both Strzok and Page. As a consequence of the IG finding that Strzok showed a “willingness to take official action” to prevent Trump’s election, the day after the report was released Strzok was fired and escorted from FBI headquarters.
McCabe has claimed that when Trump fired Comey it was suspected that he did so to impede the Russia investigation. As evidence of Trump’s motive an excerpt of an NBC interview he did with Lester Holt two days after the firing in which it appears that Trump admits he fired Comey because of the Russia inquiry, is often cited.
“I was going to fire Comey knowing that there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself -I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election they should have won.”
However, often left out of this argument is that Trump followed up this thought by admitting by firing Comey “I might even lengthen out the investigation, but I have to do the right thing for the American people. He’s the wrong man for the position”.
And Trump was right. Firing Comey did not impede the investigation at all. Almost two years later the investigation is still underway, and although Trump has been critical he has taken no action to end the probe.
Further, it is almost a unanimous consensus that Comey committed egregious errors during his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, warranting his firing. It is also believed by most that the president has constitutional authority to fire the FBI Director, for any reason.
Clearly McCabe holds a great animus for Trump. Recounting a conversation with Trump after Comey’s firing McCabe compared Trump to a Russian Mafia boss. The perceived gangster-like behavior exhibited by Trump was his asking McCabe if he thought it was a good idea to visit the FBI after he fired James Comey. Doesn’t exactly sound like a scene out of the Godfather.
McCabe’s most shocking admission is his description of a meeting at the Justice Department headquarters, in May 2017, immediately after James Comey is fired. The meeting included McCabe, Page, and Rosenstein. McCabe describes a discussion among the participants about “whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president under the 25th amendment. Corroborating prior reports, McCabe also recounted that Rosenstein considered wearing a “wire” to record conversations with Trump to facilitate their objective of ridding the country of a Trump presidency.
The 25th amendment was ratified after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, to allow for replacing the president in the event of death, resignation, or incapacitation, not as a substitute for the impeachment process. There was and is zero evidence that Trump is incapacitated in any manner.
The Acting Director of the FBI, and Deputy Attorney General discussing ousting a legitimately elected president is third-world tactics and nothing short of an attempted coup.
Those decrying that the Russia probes are bias and purely motivated by “deep state” anti-Trump animus can no longer be called “tin -hat” conspiracy theorists. McCabe has now outright admitted that the leadership of the Russia investigations discussed overthrowing Trump, and seemingly only didn’t proceed because they did not believe that enough cabinet members would support their plan.
To date more than a dozen DOJ/FBI agents involved with investigating Trump and his campaign have been fired, resigned, or demoted for either biased or illegal behavior. McCabe was fired after it was discovered that he lied to James Comey, other FBI agents, and the officials with the Office of the Inspector General, a total of four times. Three of which were under oath.
Mueller comprised his team of prosecutors with Clinton donors, some of whom in the past represented Clinton, the Clinton foundation, and Obama administration officials. One of the lead prosecutors on Mueller’s team, Andrew Weissman, even attended what was supposed to be Hillary Clinton’s victory party on election night.
It has been reported that Mueller’s report is soon to be released. Undoubtedly it will be critical of Trump, but in spite of the bias of those conducting the investigation conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia will not be found. If it did exist it would already be known.
Unfortunately the real collusion and conspiracy occurred within our own government. Incredibly in spite of a rogue administrative state attempting to destroy his presidency, in concert with a left-wing media, Trump has not only remained in power, but has close to a 90% approval rating among Republicans.
There needs to be a full reckoning of all who believed they knew better than the American electorate and attempted to subvert a presidency. Hopefully, with a steadfast base behind him, the true extent of the efforts to derail, and then destroy Trump’s presidency will be fully exposed.
