Via TPM:
According to NBC, McCabe will officially remain at the FBI until mid-March, which is when he can retire with full benefits.
The news follows reports last week that President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions pressured FBI Director Chris Wray to clean house and fire McCabe. Wray — whom Trump appointed in June to replace former Director James Comey after he fired him — threatened to resign if McCabe were fired.
Wray reportedly told Sessions he was frustrated by the pressure from the Department of Justice and the Trump administration, prompting Sessions to speak with White House lawyer Donald McGahn, who advised him to back off, according to The Washington Post.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see whether this was voluntary, forced, or under pressure. Or, were he me, “fuck this I am so done with this shit just let me do FOIA crap until I retire in a couple and go make millions at a law firm.”
dmsilev
Gee, the decision by FBI agents to kneecap Hillary is really paying off well for the Bureau, isn’t it?
Villago Delenda Est
The FBI does need to clean house: by eliminating the nest of traitors in the Manhattan office.
Miss Bianca
“Did he jump or was he pushed”?
Timurid
CBS and CNN are saying he was forced out… reported to work today and was told to go home.
Suzanne
@Timurid: A friend is saying that he probably resigned under pressure in order to keep his pension. WTF.
Matt McIrvin
@dmsilev: For the ones who did it? Probably. They’ll be the ones left.
tobie
@Timurid: I’m not sure why we should believe the story that Wray valiantly stood up for the independence of the FBI and threatened to resign before asking McCabe to leave. Seems like the preferred flavor in leaks from the executive branch last week was that good, upstanding, patriotic men like Wray and McGahn were willing to give up their jobs before doing anything that would damage the integrity and honor of this great nation. As I posted below, that whole line now strikes me as baloney. Whoever works for this administration in an executive capacity is a collaborator.
Kristine
Even if McCabe is forced out, he can still be called as a witness. He can still testify. I don’t understand how shifting Comey confidants to different jobs and/or forcing them out helps the orange one. Shoots their credibility? Anyone who listens to Faux News or sits on the GOP side of the aisle will condemn them anyway.
Marcopolo
@Kristine: Yep, McCabe’s most important exit interview will be with Mueller.
Cheryl Rofer
OMG, John, it must be catching! I was just taken to task downstairs for breaching Balloon Juice Rule #1, that we don’t wait for information before firmly opining!
Adria McDowell
I listened to the entire Slow Burn podcast (well, up to the last one available) this morning, and it’s amazing how much history might not repeat, but often rhyme.
Chris
@dmsilev:
Seriously. As terrifying as it is, it’s really hard not to think “gee, you think maybe you should’ve thought of that before you decided to join the crusade against the She-Witch of Benghazi?”
mai naem mobile
@Kristine: exactly. And McCabe’s had plenty of time to save stuff for Mueller if he needed to. He didn’t become the deputy by being stupid so I am guessing he’s done plenty of real time notes to document stuff. I’m more interested in why Obama took Dana Boente off the succession line at the DOJ and Dolt45 put him back in. There’s something significant there.
Chris
@Suzanne:
Fox News is phrasing it as “he was removed.”
(I don’t know the specifics because I refuse to click on it, it just popped up on Facebook as “trending now.”)
rikyrah
@tobie:
I don’t believe it either.
Chris
@tobie:
Yeah, it seems pretty clear at this point that last week’s story was bullshit.
schrodingers_cat
OT: When is the ransom note for the Dreamers going to be officially delivered?
Lee Hartmann
Maybe the FBI should reconsider their general orientation in favor of Republicans.
Also too, clean out the Guiliani rats’ nest in NY.
Chris
@Lee Hartmann:
I’d love to believe that one of the results of this will be members of the security/intelligence community widely reconsidering that orientation.
But, who are we kidding, that’s not going to happen.
jl
@Chris: For now, we just have to hope that they decide not worth it to try to protect the current lawless edition of Republicans in the WH. Baby steps, but important ones.
Comey did them a solid right before he election, and look what that got him.
Immanentize
@Kristine: @Marcopolo:
I think the defensive play is to smear the witnesses in the FBI who have pretty direct or contemporaneous knowledge of Trump’s obstruction BEFORE they become public witnesses. Then, they are just “disgruntled employees in a grudge match with the President.” It is a clever pre-defense tactic and will certainly be effective with the FOX viewers.
PaulWartenberg
if this is a position that is normally filled by either the President or the Attorney General, the Democrats in the Senate better raise one hell of a stink to block anybody filling it because it’s pretty goddamn clear trump/Sessions is doing this to kill the Russia investigation.
LAO
Most of the FBI agents I’ve met, are right wing assholes. It goes with the “law enforcement” territory. It should be interesting to see how they feel now that the right wing howler monkeys have been released on them.
mai naem mobile
Willem Defoe can play Andrew McCabe in the Fire and Fury movie. He looks like the character that Defoe played in Mississippi Burning.
LAO
@Immanentize:
Who knows? It might even work on me.
germy
I’ll skip it and watch Maxine Waters instead.
Kristine
@mai naem mobile:
I think T*&^% put him in place for when he fires Rosenstein.
Even if they do that, though, none of this goes away. Mueller has been working with state AGs for months. IMO, the federal charges like obstruction sound preferable to the charges the states, esp NY–could hit T$%^# with. Racketeering. Money laundering. Tax fraud. None of that is going away. The GOP chops off one head, three will grow to take its place.
tobie
@PaulWartenberg: My understanding is that the Director of the FBI appoints the Deputy Director. Wray himself got 92 votes for his nomination; only 5 Democrats voted no (Gillibrand, Merkley, Wyden, Warren, and Markey). I’m still curious who fired McCabe. I would think it would be the FBI Director.
Immanentize
@LAO: Ha!
Chris
@germy:
Good God, FUCK THAT GUY!!! Ugh.
jl
I don’t understand this story. Can’t Trump convene some bogus special review of the Nunes memo, and after it whitewashes it, and makes some cosmetic recommendations, Trump can sign off on it and say it’s OK to release? Trump is the president and he can decide whether it contains damaging classified info, right? Maybe Trump’s WH handlers won’t explain it to him? Seriously, I don’t get it. Not an expert on his rarefied level of declassification procedure.
White House Goes To War With DOJ
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-white-house-justice-department-battle-over-release-nunes-memo
LAO
@Immanentize: You might be interested, a disgusting Batson decision out of Georgia today — see thread:
jl
@LAO: The defense teams will submit motions that only Fox News viewers can be impartial jurors for the Manafort and Page, and other, trials.
Roger Moore
@germy:
Can we hope he’ll be struck by the “responding to the SOTU destroys your presidential ambitions” curse?
Cheryl Rofer
@jl: Nothing in this story is going according to the logic one might expect (1) from reasonable people and (2) if we had all the information.
I am convinced, for example, that there is something important about Nunes’s connection to all this that we don’t know. We also don’t know the whole story of the Trump-Russia connection, and I suspect there is a LOT more there.
Trump’s role is confusing because (1) He is scared to death about something that may come out. That could be anything from the fact that he didn’t win the popular vote to receiving a paycheck from Vladimir Putin. (2) He wants no responsibility for any of this. Hence his badgering of McCabe via tweet, for example.
Your scenario makes a certain amount of sense for politics as usual. This is not that.
Steve in the ATL
@LAO: holy shit. In defense of the state of my residence, I’m in California today and have been for a week.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
ruemara
@Roger Moore: No, because it’s a fucking cult at this point.
oldgold
Another centipede foot needs to fall. This week.
And, it needs to go to the heart of the matter.
Normally, time is on the prosecutions side – not here.
The Moar You Know
@LAO: I expect they’ll join right up. They’re good
GermansAmericans.LAO
@Steve in the ATL: You best scurry back and fix it man!
Steeplejack
@Chris:
At least no word from Jill Stein yet.
MisterForkbeard
@Steve in the ATL: Shouldn’t you have your nym to “Steve in the CA” or something? :)
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: Maybe the WH is making a show of some kind? They don’t really want it released, or at least want any risks of an irregular, unreviewed, or if reviewed but still patently irresponsible, release to fall on Nunes and Congressional GOP leadership, but WH wants to make it look like they want it released.
That has a kind of third rate reality TV show pizzazz that makes sense to me.
Immanentize
@LAO: Extra record evidence in a Batson case? That seems like a cert-worthy issue, especially if the prosecutor got the names wrong. There is a famous Batson case from Texas(?) I think where the prosecutor said he struck the black juror because he admitted he was a Mason and the prosecutor said he didn’t trust Masonic orders and such secret societies. The guy was a stone mason….
ETA I have known prosecutors to regularly run jurors to see if they outstanding warrants (probably OK, because they may be unable to serve by statute), but I have never heard of a prosecutor claiming that undisclosed purported relationship to a family member is a basis for exclusion if it is not in the statute. And, of course, did the prosecutor run every potential juror?
Steve in the ATL
@LAO: Nahmias, the justice who wrote the opinion, is a hardcore RWNJ. He’s a true believer. He was first few elected a few years ago when Georgia took a hard turn to the right. His opponent was no better, though.
And the last line of the opinion tells you all you need to know about the “New” South:
trollhattan
@Chris:
And “Dr.” Jill Stein will sing her SOTU response, accompanied by a hipster ska band and cossack dancers.
jl
@Steeplejack: Personally, I think good idea that everyone who doesn’t like Trump has an opportunity to make a response to Trump SOTU address. Is there a place I can sign up? A waiting list?
Steve in the ATL
@MisterForkbeard: would love to! Right after the real estate crash–is there a firm date for that?
SiubhanDuinne once suggested that my nym should be Steve never in the ATL.
Hildebrand
@LAO: Yep, the biggest right-wing asshole I know is a former FBI agent. Smug, dumb as a brick, fascistic, jingoistic, and has done a thorough job alienating his only son, likely because his son is gay. He loudly proclaims that all his buddies in the ‘Bureau’ love Trump because he is going to clean house. Asshole.
Steeplejack
@MisterForkbeard:
“Steve Based in the ATL.”
@Steve in the ATL:
“Steve Never in the ATL.” Yeah, that’s better.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Everything I’ve read so far suggests that McCabe was forced out – i.e., ordered to step down – but will remain on “terminal leave” (whatever that means) until mid-March so he can receive his retirement benefits.
It sounds like a compromise agreement made so Trump can declare it a win while Wray gets to protect the retirement benefits of a twenty-year FBI veteran, and mitigate the lawsuits and loss of morale that would probably accompany firing a high-profile agent less than 60 days before his retirement benefits kick in.
Anyway, I’m glad McCabe gets to keep his earned benefits.
Steeplejack
@jl:
Yes. It’s called YouTube.
MisterForkbeard
@Steve in the ATL: I think we’ve come to “Steve in the US” now.
Also, in the name of honest nyms, I will glue forks to my beard for the next meetup. Let’s please go somewhere this won’t get me thrown out.
The Moar You Know
@germy: The Bernie cultists will do what the Republicans can’t: make sure the government stays in GOP hands.
Sickening.
ETA: why has nobody gone looking at his and Stein’s finances?
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: Whenever I think of the Berner campaign, I think of this quote:
people like to fill that in with “the Clinton campaign,” but Schiff said something similar and I believe it is Bernie’s campaign. His $27 donation effort was almost wholly unregulated.
MisterForkbeard
@The Moar You Know: I’m perfectly happy to have Bernie making points against Trump. So long as he doesn’t hog all the news oxygen and doesn’t attack Democrats during his speech, more power to him.
As much as I think his presidential campaign was an epic disaster that contributed to Trump’s narrow win, he’s still on our side. Most of the time.
@Immanentize: That would make a lot of sense. It would be a relatively easy way to pump money into his campaign, and I don’t think there was an effort to police it at all within the Sander’s campaign.
trollhattan
@MisterForkbeard:
Recalling Bo Derek’s rattling beads, you need to film yourself running slo-mo on a beach. Unless they’re metal forks, then you’ll sound like windchimes, which could have an appeal all its own.
LAO
@Immanentize: @Steve in the ATL: A couple of years ago, I was picking a jury in New York County and I didn’t want women on the panel and luck of the draw there were 9 women in the first panel, 7 African American and 2 white. I knocked all of them off on the slimmest of pretext. The fucking prosecutor made a Batson argument during Voir Dire. The Judge looked at me and asked for my argument. I was really taken back. Ah, Judge — (1) the state doesn’t have a protected interest in a racially diverse jury; (2) what about the 2 white women; and (3) the ADA knocked out the 3 African American men. It was a very bizarre moment.
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard:
this seems like a rather drastic step. Surely you’re not expecting to encounter any drop bears, are you?
JGabriel
@jl:
Yeah, but Trump only feels comfortable releasing classified information to Russian gov’t officials, not American citizens.
trollhattan
@MisterForkbeard:
It’s Wilmer, so at least one “boff-sides” shall be inserted. Hopefully he stays clear of “Schumer shutdown.”
tobie
@The Moar You Know: Will the Phucker at least wait till Kennedy gives his response or, in his usual fashion, try to divide any concerted response on the part of the resistance to Trump?
Just saw a TV where CNN was having an intense discussion of HRC’s tolerance for sexual harassment in her campaign in 2008. My gosh, how much blood can they squeeze from a stone.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: Orders from Moscow? Or rubles for the upkeep of the Lake Champlain home?
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
I have to say, if he runs in 2020, unless he’s picked off early, I don’t see how that possibly ends in anything but a trainwreck.
Miss Bianca
@LAO: OK, you *know* I have to ask, “why did you want no women on your panel?”, right?
Mike in DC
I think that the next play by the GOP is to try to use the Nunes memo to provide Trump with a pretextual excuse to fire Rosenstein and replace him with Rachel Brand, who will either severely curb the scope of Mueller’s investigation, or shut it down entirely. So firing Rosenstein is perilously close to firing Mueller and we should react the same way to it.
Immanentize
@LAO:
This looks like a question of not complete initial Batson arguments by the defense attorneys followed up with excellent investigation. I would take this to the Supreme Court. They are deciding race cases pretty much right these days (Roberts is on board with trying to purge some racism in criminal trials)
LAO
@Immanentize:
I agree. I thought the whole purpose of voir dire (which in NY state court is the funniest thing to do in litigation) was to suss out prejudice. Of course a juror with a family member with a criminal record can serve as a juror — all that they need to do is affirm their ability to be fair and impartial. It’s really such shit.
germy
(rawstory)
jl
@Steeplejack:
” Yes. It’s called YouTube. ”
I can’t afford fancy drapes, a lectern with some bogus seal on it. Best I can do is a Rubio-style water bottle for my pretend dry=mouth.
Also, I want Chris Matthews to mutter ‘Oh God…’ into a hot mike as I come out to speak.
All SOTU responders should get equal treatment.
LanceThruster
@The Moar You Know:
The Hillbots put Trump in office in the first place. Turns out picking a Pied Piper you could not beat wasn’t the brightest campaign strategy after all. I think Bernie’s SOTU rebuttal will have more to offer than HRC’s Grammy reading stunt.
LAO
@Miss Bianca: LOL, I probably should have addressed that — sleazy male defendant. And yes, he was acquitted.
@Immanentize: I hope you’re right. According to Steve (NEVER) in ATL, we can look forward to more beauties like this from Georgia.
Emerald
@Chris:
He won’t run in 2020. All that oppo research on him would come out, and he can’t stand that.
He’ll decline to run due to reasons.
Meanwhile he’ll milk his cult status for as long as he can. And do as much damage to the Democrats as he can.
Immanentize
@LAO: That has happened to me as well, and if you ever get into that situation again, after you give your reasons, you can point out to the Court that the appropriate remedy for a Batson violation, should the Court agree with the Government, is to strike the panel and start again…. Batson objection by the State denied.
And, for teh record, I think it is pretty clear that either side can raise a Batson challenge because the right belongs to the juror not the defendant…. Also, my favorite Batson move is, when the prosecutor starts in on the race neutral reason discussion, ask the court to swear the prosecutor in as a witness and have that witness produce any notes, recordings or written materials relevant to their testimony. Man, that really changes the tenor of the proceedings….
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Actually, suka has a few different meanings. It can mean something more like “SOB” or “bastard.” I don’t usually think of it as meaning “bitch” in the submissive sense. And then of course it is the word for a female dog.
germy
germy
jl
@germy: Dingel would do a good response. More the merrier. He can’t get no TV crew? Why not?
I guess he could tweet it. Dingell can do great tweets.
Dingell should announce a twitter response thread. CNN will have a big panel on it, with lots for furrowed brows on the deep implications.
Roger Moore
@JGabriel:
It probably means he has enough accrued vacation to carry him through until retirement, so he’s officially still on the job but in practice isn’t allowed to do anything.
LAO
@Immanentize:
I don’t actually think I have ever realized that, it has been a long time since law school. And, by no means in NYC a racial mecca, but I have never really run into this problem. Every jury trial I’ve been involved in has had a diverse jury pool and panel.
Chyron HR
@LanceThruster:
When the Berning Man delivers one of his spittle-flecked rants about restoring the White Working Race to its rightful glory and purging the country of “identity politics”, is it hard to keep your arm from reflexively heil-ing?
Chris
@Emerald:
As long as that’s what happens, fine. He can milk his cult status.
My concern is if he doesn’t have the self-awareness to be afraid of “all the oppo research,” thinks he can beat it, and runs anyway.
Jay S
@Steeplejack:
“Steve Never, Hardly Ever in the ATL.” G&S stuck loosely in head.
Immanentize
@LAO: Try the federal jury pools in the Texas burbs of San Antonio — a huge number of grumpy white guys who are retired military. They come to jury duty wearing friggin’ ties!
lgerard
Today is the day The Treasury Department is supposed to release the list of Russians tied to Putin and organized crime being sanctioned, so I guess any distraction is welcomed.
trollhattan
Well, well, well.
Got that? “Completely cleared.”
burnspbesq
FWIW, it’s common practice, at all levels and at all Federal agencies, for retiring employees to bug out as soon as their accumulated annual leave is enough to carry them to their official retirement date. So while it’s certainly possible that McCabe was run off, I’m not prepared to conclude that absent better evidence than is currently out there.
There will be big firm HR directors lined up around the block offering him bushel baskets of cash to join their white-collar practices. Or he could end up someplace like the Brennan Center, with a writing gig for Just Security on the side. Guy has the world by the balls, with no reason not to squeeze.
LAO
@Immanentize: Ha, there a reason I practice here. I can’t imagine going to trial in Texas. (Unless I was representing a white police officer who gunned down a minority, of course).
efgoldman
@LanceThruster: I thought I pied you a long time ago.
re-pied for good luck.
SC54HI
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Toobin is very, very sorry that he engaged in false equivalence during the 2016 campaign.
Cheryl Rofer
@jl: That would indicate some regard on Trump’s part for someone who is not him, namely Congress. It’s also kind of complicated, maybe too much so for him.
LAO
@SC54HI: The end of the article really got me:
Not really — but thanks for playing!
Wapiti
@JGabriel:
I assume Federal civilians work under rules similar to the services. In the Army I could accumulate leave (vacation days), and had 67.5 days (2+ years worth) saved up at retirement. My retirement date was set at December 31st. So I was able to sign out on terminal leave something like October 25th, 67 days before my retirement date, and never had to go back on base.
Adria McDowell
@Wapiti: Same with both my husband and I. We both had ETS(me)/retirement(him) dates in September, and we started terminal leave in July.
Nice paychecks for two months while doing nothing!
tobie
@burnspbesq: It’s certainly possible that McCabe chose to use his vacation time to ease into retirement. I am not worried about his future prospects, even though Trump is already tweeting that he should be fired outright so the US taxpayer doesn’t have to pay for him for life. No matter what, McCabe will land on his feet with a good job. But given that well-regarded people like Susan Hennessy are saying he was forced out, I will assume this is the case until evidence to the contrary is presented.
Did we ever learn anything about the weird history of Dana Boente being dismissed and then hired by Wray?
germy
@SC54HI:
zhena gogolia
Too bad this post isn’t about the careers of Beatty and Altman.
Irony Abounds
I am as pessimistic as I have ever been that the horror of Trump will be rectified, either by Mueller or at the polls in November. The GOP is using a full court press of lies, distractions, smears and fear-mongering to discredit anyone associated with Mueller and the FBI, and because of the Media’s congenital need for false equivalence any attempt to point out just how dishonest the GOP is will be drowned out by some claim of Hillary wrong-doing. Unless Mueller strikes quickly, he will either be fired and the investigation halted, or any indictments he brings will be buried in controversy. On the political front, the Kochs are going to spend billions on ads touting how wonderful the GOP economic agenda is, and no matter how much lies, deception and crockery are built into the ads, all they have to do is convince a relatively small percentage of independents since Trump’s base of below room temperature IQ voters still make up around 30-35% of voters. If the GOP holds the House and the Senate in 2018 there won’t be enough left of this country for 2020 to matter. The tactics being used by President Shithole and the GOP are obviously those used by autocrats to hold power, but the media and DC elites simply refuse to recognize what is going on.
ET
Of course now that he won’t be on the government’s payroll he doesn’t have to be as politic as he would have if he was…… That is not to say he will go totally nuts – ’cause he still has to work – but the gag that was in place by sheer dint of his job title isn’t there. And if he was forced out subtly/not so subtly one wonders how he will translate his loyalty to the FBI.
bemused
@Cheryl Rofer:
That’s how I feel about Nunes. He has a putrid stench about him and I’d like to what he fell in.
JohnO
@Irony Abounds:
What you said.
Takes way longer to fix things than break them, and some things are irreparable after they’re broken.
Chris
@Irony Abounds:
I think the fact that Republicans have gone all-in behind the “FBI is a liberal secret society” narrative tells us pretty much all we need to know in terms of Trump actually being held accountable no matter what Mueller finds and even if Mueller isn’t fired.
The only option left is, indeed, at the ballot box… and the 1% are, indeed, pulling out all the stops to prevent a backlash in November (also too, Republican vote suppression). The special elections thus far are some cause for hope; let’s see if it holds up through this November.
mai naem mobile
@bemused: Russian poison ivy. It’s making him itchy and jumpy all over.
msdc
@germy: Waters counterprogramming herself against Kennedy was bad enough. Now we have this guy, too? This is not a good sign.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Adria McDowell: I had the same impression of Slow Burn. Scary.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@PaulWartenberg: I think this is just a normal FBI position. A month or so ago, I asked my FBI friend who would probably succeed McCabe and my friend said this David person who was #3. That seems to be who’s moving into the position now. It’s not a political appointment, though the administration can probably have some influence.
celticdragonchick
@burnspbesq: Lots of reporting now that he was forced out this morning with no notice whatsoever.
LanceThruster
@Chyron HR:
Maybe he should switch to a folksy drawl and let everyone know, “I ain’t no ways tired?” I’m glad he gets worked up over important issues. Trump rode into office on the votes of people tired of the same old shit. Bernie generates a similar enthusiasm, but with and actual concern for the working class.
I remember all the VSP’s here (Very Serious People) during the primaries marvelling at Hillary’s stellar resume and downplaying the enthusiasm gap. No worries at all despite a good portion of her support talking about holding their collective noses to vote for her because Trump was worse.
She and her consultants expected to coast to victory. No amount of pointing out how shitty Trump is changes that. Bernie team members begged her staff not to ignore key swing state precincts, but they knew better.
Buuut….she got a book deal out of it and a cameo appearance on the Grammys so I guess it’s all good, no?
LanceThruster
@efgoldman:
Nothing says “I’m ignoring you” like telling someone “I’m ignoring you.” xD
How can I miss you if you won’t go away?
Fair Economist
@LanceThruster: Yum, pie!
LanceThruster
@Fair Economist:
At least we know Hillary isn’t the type of woman to stay home and bake cookies. Not at all sure what her pie is like. All I do know is that her use of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale (Pied Piper) as a campaign strategy was at best, “half-baked.” Maybe she should try Mother Goose next time?
debbie
@burnspbesq:
Can we get him to write about Trump?