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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Open Thread: The Revenge of Andrew McCabe

Open Thread: The Revenge of Andrew McCabe

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We Harps are also notorious for our ability to hold a grudge! From the Washington Post‘s national security correspondent:

He didn’t read intelligence reports and mixed up classified material with what he had seen in newspaper clips. He seemed confused about the structure and purpose of organizations and became overwhelmed when meetings covered multiple subjects. He blamed immigrants for nearly every societal problem and uttered racist sentiments with shocking callousness.

This isn’t how President Trump is depicted in a new book by former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe. Instead, it’s McCabe’s account of what it was like to work for then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The FBI was better off when “you all only hired Irishmen,” Sessions said in one diatribe about the bureau’s workforce. “They were drunks but they could be trusted. Not like all those new people with nose rings and tattoos — who knows what they’re doing?”

It’s a startling portrait that suggests that the Trump administration’s reputation for baseness and dysfunction has, if anything, been understated and too narrowly attributed to the president…

McCabe was known as a taciturn figure in the bureau, in contrast to the more garrulous Comey. His book reflects that penchant for brevity, with just 264 pages of text. Even so, he documents the president’s attempts to impair the Russia probe and incessant attacks on the institution, describing the stakes in sweeping, convincing language.

“Between the world of chaos and the world of order stands the rule of law,” McCabe writes. “Yet now the rule of law is under attack, including from the president himself.”

Inevitably, the book includes disturbing new detail about Trump’s subservience to Russian President Vladimir Putin. During an Oval Office briefing in July 2017, Trump refused to believe U.S. intelligence reports that North Korea had test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile — a test that Kim Jong Un had called a Fourth of July “gift” to “the arrogant Americans.”

Trump dismissed the missile launch as a “hoax,” McCabe writes. “He thought that North Korea did not have the capability to launch such missiles. He said he knew this because Vladimir Putin had told him so.”…

McCabe notes that he would like to “say much more” about his firing and questions of his candor toward other bureau officials, but that he is restrained from doing so because he is pursuing a lawsuit.

There is one area, however, in which he is considerably more forthcoming than Comey. He acknowledges that the bureau made major miscalculations in its handling of the Clinton probe in 2016 and its decision to discuss it publicly.

“As a matter of policy, the FBI does everything possible not to influence elections,” he writes. “In 2016, it seems we did.”

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    chopper

    also, apparently sarah sanders officially announced trump’s intention to declare a national emergency over wall funding via twitter. using her iphone’s notes app.

    stop the planet of the apes, i wanna get off.

  2. 2.

    jl

    “It’s a startling portrait”
    Startling? Really?

    I laughed at the quote at the top about the good Irish drunks and them dang kid FBI agents these days with their piercings and tats, because…. obvs Sessions.

  5. 5.

    Millard Filmore

    @jl:

    I laughed at the quote at the top about the good Irish drunks and them dang kid FBI agents these days with their piercings and tats

    Hey, this is America, land of the free. We don’t have to tolerate individuality here.

  6. 6.

    Patricia Kayden

    Nice way to insult Irish folk by implying that they’re all drunk. Sessions was nothing but a jerk.

  10. 10.

    Zinsky

    Nice to know Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is even stupider and more bigoted than the pimply, inbred hillbilly loser I took him to be!

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    So just how often does the President speak with Putin?

  14. 14.

    jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Once before breakfast, once after lunch, one in the early evening, then sweet nothings at bedtime. They might not all be Pooty Poot but they all sound like Pooty Poot.

    The real question, is how often does Melania, Needy Amin’s handler, talk to the FSB given all Needy Amin’s pouting, tantrums and hiding away from enacting Pooty Poot’s Agenda during “Executive Time”?

  17. 17.

    Aleta

    Remember the reporting in the Oregonian a while back about Saudi college students in the US who had committed crimes but disappeared before trial (some had even given up their passport). It was thought the Saudi government may have assisted them.

    Two recent stories, and fwiw finally the feds are involved:
    https://expo.oregonlive.com/news/g66l-2019/02/4ed6d9c1bc2906/not-just-oregon-saudi-students-in-at-least-8-states-canada-vanish-while-facing-criminal-charges.html

    https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/02/feds-launch-investigation-into-disappearance-of-saudi-students-facing-us-charges.html

  19. 19.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Patricia Kayden: What he overlooked was what’s known as Irish (and also Appalachian) Alzheimer’s: when people forget everything but their grudges. People will notice that remark, and they will remember it.

  20. 20.

    Mike J

    @Adam L Silverman: If you tell everyone, “we’re doing stuxnet 2.0” you might be able to make them divert resources to looking for a threat and/or make them do things in a more secure but less efficient manner.

  21. 21.

    Plato

    Don’t know what these so called exposes really achieve to stop the totus thug.

    Husband of senior Trump White House adviser seems to suggest new attorney general is planning a Saturday Night Massacre to obstruct justice in the Russia probe. https://t.co/NOL0FetskM
    — John Aravosis ?? (@aravosis) February 15, 2019

  22. 22.

    Leto

    As this is an OT: Man With 3-D-Printed Gun Had Hit List of Lawmakers, U.S. Says

    Let’s see:

    Has protective order out against him from his girlfriend: check

    In the database to not be able to purchase firearms: check

    Has whackadoodle views: check

    Decides to print the lower receiver and build the AR style gun with legally purchased components: check

    I know Adam will come in with a, “Yeah, but tensile strength and rounds per minute, this thing will never handle the stress…” which I will counter that they’re now 3D printing parts for us military aircraft. They’re 3D printing parts for Formula 1 cars. The technology for this is coming down the pike sooner than we think. Our lawmakers need to get a handle on this sooner rather than later.

  26. 26.

    Mike in NC

    Personally, I’ve gotten a bit peeved lately by all the FBI agents with nose rings knocking on my door.

  28. 28.

    Mike in NC

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m thinking Stephen Miller came up with a clever and original scheme to make Fidel Castro’s beard fall out by having the CIA sprinkle chemicals on it. Trump is said to be intrigued by the idea.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    Sure and begorrah, like chip off the old sod (not!) Melvin Purvis.

    Dear FSM: Please, please nobody inform Sessions about Prince Alberts unless there’s a fainting couch at the ready.

    ;)

  30. 30.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Adam L Silverman: A lot of discussion on Twitter about that, from folks who know rocketry, including two who are quoted in the article. Bottom line: probably not happening. Sanger has a vivid imagination. Or someone leaked it to unsettle the Iranians on the cheap.

  31. 31.

    opiejeanne

    @Patricia Kayden: When we visited Ireland we found that they were very touchy about the image of the Irish as drunkards. We didn’t bring it up, they volunteered this info, that they were not drunks, in a tiny pub in Clonakilty on the night when they had live music and a peat fire in the fireplace.

    An Teach Beag

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Leto: I don’t disagree that this is going from not much of a problem for now to this is becoming a major problem. So no arguments here.

    Also, he seems nice!

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Aleta: The asshat lit Comet Ping Pong on fire. That’s the pizza place that is supposedly ground zero for the Clinton pedophile trafficking ring bullshit peddled by nutbar supporters of the President and Mike Flynn, Jr.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mike in NC: Laugh now, but let’s see how much of the national emergency declaration is written by Miller. That little creep will kill us all if given the chance.

  37. 37.

    Yutsano

    I’mma gonna let you finish, but can we talk about how Mrs Barbara Lee just threw her hat in the ring for Kamala? And how all the BernieBros are losing their shit over it? JC is all over it on his Twitter feed.

  38. 38.

    Mary G

    Trump refused to believe that North Korea had test-fired a missile in 2017, per Andrew McCabe book. “He thought that North Korea did not have the capability to launch such missiles. He said he knew this because Vladimir Putin had told him so.” https://t.co/0HxKotlaW7— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) February 15, 2019

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ken: More seriously, I try to stick to the just silly and weird ones where no one gets hurt or hurts someone else. Because that just feels like I’m punching down.

  60. 60.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes. But didn’t the police and the owner make a point of announcing, right after the fire, that there was no connection to the events a few years ago. The place still gets phone harassment, and it’s horrible that the stuff is probably still on the internet. And he might have been sucked in—no info on whether he’s mentally ill—-but there’s no link so far between him and the actual conspiracy peddling. It’s very good that he’s caught, a serious crime (he lit curtains, which were put out), but it seems early to want his punishment before a trial.

  65. 65.

    Duane

    That quote from Sessions really got my Irish up. I’ve seen Gangs of New York.
    Better have a drink and think about it.

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Aleta: The only reason this asshat travels across the country to DC in order to burn down Comet Ping Pong is because he’s bought into the conspiracy. If he just hated pizza and wanted to make a stand against pizza, there’s a Papa John’s closer to his house in California.

  72. 72.

    opiejeanne

    @Duane: My husband’s great great grandparents lived near 5 points at the time of the New York draft riots in 1863 that burned down the Colored Children’s Asylum. They were Irish, from the Belfast area. He was a drunkard and we think he beat his wife and broke her arm. He abandoned them, taking the youngest girl, age 13, with him after declaring he was going back to Ireland as there was no work here that he wanted, saying he’d send for them once he got settled. Never heard from either of them again.
    The family for every generation since has been angry about the stereotype that the Irish are drunkards.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    Happy Valentine’s Day!

  75. 75.

    Aleta

    @Adam L Silverman: “If he just hated pizza and wanted to make a stand against pizza, there’s a Papa John’s closer to his house in California.” That’s not the question.

    Comet’s owner, James Alefantis, said he has no reason to believe the fire is linked to what happened in 2016, an event that thrust him and his neighborhood shop into the national discussion over the dangers posed by the widely circulated false stories.
    “That was years ago,” Alefantis said Friday.

    Again: Sure, he might have been sucked in (by the internet). There’s no info on whether or not he’s mentally ill.

    He’s not responsible for their lies in 2016. (Did any of them, besides the gun man, even get charged?) He’s responsible for arson and he’s probably going to jail or forced treatment for a long time.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @Aleta:

    I think you and Adam are talking past each other. No one is saying that this guy was somehow responsible for creating the conspiracy theory in 2016, and that seems to be what the restaurant’s owner is denying.

    However, it seems pretty likely that he’s one of the QAnon cultists who really believes that the conspiracy theory is true, which is why he did this.

  77. 77.

    Aleta

    @Mnemosyne: We’re talking about why Adam said he’s OK with this guy having been tased when usually he’s not OK with tasing. Adam says it’s because of what Flynn and Trump supporters have done to the restaurant, which we both agree is horrible. So we’re talking about OKing tasing in a punitive sense (not for the reason he was tased, for resisting arrest).

    The arrested guy probably believes in the conspiracy, but whether from mental illness or not is too soon know. (Being caught twice in two days at the Monument and wearing the same clothes as at the fire brings up the question, as well as that sometimes (not always) arsonists are ill.) He isn’t directly connected to the original crimes in 2016, though he may have bought into them.

    My question wasn’t about what the arrested guy believes. He committed a crime, he’s caught, he’s going to jail. My question is about thinking of tasing as just punishment (and not for the arson, but because he believed a hoax that he didn’t start).

  78. 78.

    John Revolta

    @Adam L Silverman: Groucho Marx was known to have a premature ejaculation problem. A friend of his got him some desensitizing lotion to try out. The next day they met at the club.
    “So, Groucho, how did it go?”
    “I came rubbing it on.”

  80. 80.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: OUAT I heard about a man in Poland who had named his dog Stalin. Everyone thought him a staunch Stalinist, but in fact he hated old Uncle Joe, & beat the unlucky animal regularly as a surrogate. (The college student who told me this supposedly knew it firsthand from the time before his family escaped to the West. Doubtful, since he couldn’t have been more than 3 when the Vozhd in question died.)

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