Andrew McCabe: DOJ considered how to remove Trump under 25th Amendment after Comey firing
Seven Days in May was a movie about a fictional military coup, Eight Days In May is about the DOJ attempt to remove Trump after Comey firing
In the fictional book and 1964 movie Seven Days in May:
“United States military leaders plot to overthrow the President because he supports a nuclear disarmament treaty and they fear a Soviet sneak attack.”
In the non-fictional Eight Days in May, members of the United States Department of Justice, including senior FBI officials, plotted the potential removal of President Donald Trump under the 25th Amendment because he fired FBI Director James Comey and allegedly was soft on Russia.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment.”
The Hill reports:
Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe in a new interview reveals new details of the investigations into President Trump, telling CBS that there were conversations about the possibility of removing Trump under the 25th amendment and confirming that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had offered to wear a wire around the president.
McCabe spoke to “60 Minutes” for an interview ahead of the release of his book, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.”
CBS News’ Scott Pelley appeared on “CBS This Morning” Thursday to discuss his interview with McCabe, saying that McCabe told him about the efforts to figure out “what to do” with Trump during the eight days between the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Pelley said Thursday. “And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president.”
Pelley said that McCabe told him Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered multiple times to wear a wire in meetings with Trump.
.@ScottPelley on what McCabe told @60Minutes: "There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment." pic.twitter.com/iVAyrEV4MF
— Norah O'Donnell ?? (@NorahODonnell) February 14, 2019
Here is the teaser 60 Minutes released:
The willingness, indeed eagerness, of the permanent bureaucracy to remove Trump did not take place in isolation. It was part of a pattern of Media, Democrat and NeverTrump Republican attempts to undermine the results of the 2016 election. I covered this topic in multiple prior posts, including a post on December 12, 2016, about the attempt to undermine the Electoral College, The one thing you must understand about the unfolding media-Democrat Electoral College coup attempt:
We are witnessing nothing short of an attempt to steal the election by some Democrats and a very supportive mainstream and leftwing media, by causing Electors in the Electoral College to go rogue and vote for Hillary, or at least not vote for Trump.
And these other posts:
- Some dare call the anti-Trump feeding frenzy a “coup” attempt
- The Slow-Motion Coup d’Etat picks up steam
In what way is this not considered a coup? Partisan hacks from the prior administration plotting to have the president removed, based on total nonsense. https://t.co/nHA4YsK0oU
— David Reaboi (@davereaboi) February 14, 2019
Hard for me to understand how anyone who believes in "democracy" can think this is ok? The entire push is based on Trump's friendliness towards Russia — which wrong or right, is neither unconstitutional nor illegal. https://t.co/CsZbgeoD47
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) February 14, 2019
Imagine what kind of blowback there would be if the FBI had meetings to discuss secretly recording Obama because they didn't like his coddling of the terror regime in Iran?
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) February 14, 2019
https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1096049757032796160
McCabe confirms that the Comey firing created a retaliatory investigation based on nothing more than the Steele dossier. It’s unbelievable — it was about overturning an election by the holdover bureaucrats.
— Mark Penn (@Mark_Penn) February 14, 2019
Trump has responded on Twitter:
Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax – a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2019
….Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign – he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2019
[This is a developing story, this post has been expanded]
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Comments
The film reminds me of how far Hollywood has fallen. The political drama demonstrates how far the FBI has fallen.
It is hard to believe they were so stupid as to taint the agency with their politics. Is there any better way to discredit themselves and the agency?
How much of this was Obama’s doing? We still do not have a handle on how extensive corruption of both the FBI and DOJ may be. How many other governmental agencies have been corrupted?
At a guess, I’d say just about all of them.
It wasn’t stupidity, it was ideology. And they did it because they didn’t think they’d get caught, or if they did that nothing would happen to them.
And nothing has happened to them, and it’s highly unlikely anything will.
This is exactly why hanging was instituted as capital punishment for treason.
Time to re-implement it.
Presumably, in Fletcher Knebel’s novel, the traitors were shot.
I don’t know what the novel had as punishment (might have been realistic and had no action take against them). But even though military officers often face the firing squad for crimes committed, for treason and spying the penalty is sentenced to be hanged, not an “honorable” death by firing squad.
What happened under obama’s watch is a precursor to how the “New” Dems think. They simply could not imagine a world where they didn’t keep power and they had no problem with trying to create a coup to rid the country of Trump. This should be punishable by death but we know it won’t. This way the rabble leftist can continue their attempt through the courts and Special Counsel with the help of their ally the msm.
Even scarier is that fact that many of these bureacratic actors were not politically affiliated. They were just bureacrats who wanted to stay in power regardless of which Party had the White House.
And, in the history of the world, at least going back to the Hittites, if anyone ever deserved to be fired, by any boss – be he or she liberal, Bolshevik (the current D’Rats) or conservative – it was the pompous, overreaching, insane,incompetent Comey.
The true power in DC is not held by elected officials, or even officials confirmed by the Senate. Real power in DC is wielded by unelected bureaucrats. (In the Army we used to call them little old ladies in tennis shoes.)
Did you know that you can go to jail for violating a regulation? Not a law, written by and voted on by elected officials, but a regulation written by an unseen, unelected bureaucrat, never approved or even seen by an elected official.
That should scare people every bit as much as McCabe, if not more.
It’s not just the leftists and democrats, it’s the entrenched bureaucrats and many Republicans that sit back to let others do the dirty work.
Usually the dirty work has gone on unseen. Hopefully more will come out.
Like Trump or not, these people should all be fired and charged for treason if this is true. I suspect the ongoing “investigations” will continue so Trump can be accused of obstruction if he were to in any way punish these folks. Once investigations end then all bets would be off and that’s why they must continue.
Mueller’s authority includes any other illegal acts (even unrelated) uncovered while looking into the Russian meddling. That’s what all the present charges and pleas are for.
So when will the Clinton name reappear? All the supposed charities and Bills big speaking fees that dried up and went bust the second she lost her power would be a good place to start.
re: “Like Trump or not, these people should all be fired and charged for treason if this is true.”
That’s the entire crux of this issue…’if this is true’. I have come to think that most Americans are totally unconcerned with the truth or with it’s consequences. Look how our fellow-citizen’s responded to President Obama, a man who peddled lies and half-truth’s like a pimp peddles his ladies. Why should they care now, two plus years after Obama is gone?
And what was the crime President Trump accused of that deserved his removal from office?
America wake up! These creeps don’t like the good old USA. Trump, whether he meant to or not, has done a great service to our country in revealing these thugs trying to “save” our country ala Adolph Hitler and company.
Hitler’s Christian name was Adolf, not Adolph. He was really famous.
Adolfus actually – but nobody dared call him by his actual Christian name.
Outrageous.
The parallel with the movie seems very apt.
But of course, this exchange was perfectly ok with these people. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-summit-obama-medvedev/obama-tells-russias-medvedev-more-flexibility-after-election-idUSBRE82P0JI20120326
And the Uranium One deal was all above board, nothing to see there. Uh huh.
So Bruce Ohr states he told fellow employees at the FBI that the dossier was oppo research, they knew they never got the DNC servers to examine, so McCabe is gaslighting us all.
McCabe needs to be charged, tried, and imprisoned.
CBS knowingly enabling a liar to gaslight its viewers. And they wonder why I don’t want to pay to watch their programming.
There needs to be an investigation to identify, charge and fire everyone involved. One more thing, strip them of any long term benefits.
Yes.
Professor, under what laws could these people be charged?
Rebellion or insurrection?
Sedition and subversive activities?
Surely they have broken the law.
Put a special prosecutor, er persecutor on them, no doubt some proces crimes can be used to make them miserable.
Note – (formerly) ADAG Bruce Ohr is DoJ, not FBI. He was operating as a backdoir between Steele and Fusion GPS (where his wife worked) and the FBI, that had terminated them for talking to the press.
That is simply insane. It makes no sense. Removing a president under the 25th amendment is harder than through impeachment. It requires the same people who are needed for impeachment, plus more.
Impeaching and removing a president requires: a simple majority of the house, plus two thirds of the senate.
Removing a president against his will through the 25th amendment requires: two thirds of the house, plus two thirds of the senate, plus the vice president, plus a majority of the cabinet. If you have all of those on board you don’t need the 25th, you can simply impeach and remove him.
The purpose of the 25th is (1) to remove a president who doesn’t object but can’t resign because he’s in a coma or a straitjacket; or (2) to reluctantly remove a beloved president without having to embarrass him and harm his place in history. Neither of these apply to Trump. He would certainly object to his removal, and those seeking it don’t love him.
Excellent post. I really do think Trump’s election rendered more than a few people temporarily insane.
“Temporarily” my Aunt Fanny. 🙁
Well said. I have hit you with criticism more than once. But this post is a superb summation of the intent of that part of the 25th Amendment.
‘That is simply insane.’
Which doesn’t seem to have been a consideration at the DoJ/FBI for the last 5-6 years.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Nothing the DOJ or FBI has done has been insane. Trying to remove the president isn’t insane; it’s either advisable or not, but it’s a goal that can in principle be achieved, if one wants to. Undermining his policies is insubordinate, not insane. But this is actually insane. Given their goal, this is a stupid way to go about it.
One key takeaway from this cabal is that, if you assume he has even a bit of integrity, Mueller is not investigating this .. as his oversight has been one of the cabal.
Why on earth would one assume that Mueller has even a modicum of integrity. A brief google search would dispel any reasonable person of that notion.
You’re right, and a little wrong because you’re only looking at a *part* of the process, best described as a pseudo-conversation:
Deep State: Ok, Trump will be a disaster. How can we get rid of him?
McCabe/Rosenstein: 25th amendment.
Deep State: No way. The Veep wouldn’t go along with it, and we can’t trust the Republicans in the House and Senate to vote more than about half in favor.
McCabe/Rosenstein: Impeach him for conspiring with the Russians to win the election? We’ve got a couple of scraps that we can weave into a suitable narrative, if we can find a couple of patsies and some good dirt in his hotel deals outside the US.
Deep State: Sounds like a plan. Keep digging. We should be able to get rid of him inside of a year. And if he tries to block our dirt-digging, we can impeach him for obstruction of justice even sooner. Pence will be crippled for the rest of his term, and we can get Hillary in here next.
I suspect what the alleged plotters were thinking was that if they did get the cabinet votes, then they could use that as a foundation to initiate a media blitzkreig that would snowball until they swayed enough members of Congress to reach that two-thirds threshold.
Especially when any resistance by Trump would be interpreted and broadcast as further evidence of his mental incapacity (a variant on the mental illness Kafka Trap where either agreement or denial is proof of illness).
A few obvious takeaways—
The lack of self-awareness is striking. This little weasel sees himself in heroic terms. He’s as deluded as Comey.
The arrogance is horribly dangerous. The idea that a law-enforcement agency feels that it’s its place to “destroy the country in order to save it” is intolerable.
And the incompetence is amazing. How did this nest of vipers fail? They’d stacked the deck in their own favor,
ablyassisted by the press and both major political parties. And they still bungled it.The fact that this turd can brag about it all means a harsh response is definitely required. Perhaps disbandment of the FBI wouldn’t bee too strong a remedy; it’s obviously sclerotic and far too full of itself. Of course a replacement would be needed. Interview and hire applicants in the normal way, and examine anyone with prior FBI experience very closely.
They wished to become the final arbiters of who runs the country with their approval. Shades of Praetorian Guard selecting the next caesar. Rome on the Potomac.
The FBI is becoming indistinguishable in Deep State terms from other agencies…..GRU, KGB, NKVD, and STASI. Respect is either earned or gained by fear. The later now comes into focus.
Which is exactly why McCabe must be made an example – destroy him.
This weasel and his cadre of subversives should be arrested.
And executed.
In which order?
What day of the week is it?
Does it really matter what the order is as the outcome should be the same regardless?
The Old West way. Hold the trial while they’re building the gallows.
Well, they do have to do something actually illegal for that. An attempt to pervert the provisions of the 25th Amendment for rank partisan advantage isn’t actually a crime, even if it should be. Shooting or imprisoning anyone would be difficult and probably unwise, even if gratifying to many millions of Americans. But rendering them harmless should be possible. Firing Comey and McCabe was a good (and, apparently, long overdue) first step. But the idea should be extended much further. The whole agency is probably eaten through by hubris, corruption and rot. So clean it out and start with a fresh version. That will go rotten too, in time, but no government agency should be permanent.
“isn’t actually a crime”
We don’t need to confine ourselves to the non-criminal items, scratch the surface and there are criminal / sedition items.
I’m for due process and using their evidence standards.
Sentence first, verdict later.
Beg to differ – the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
Corrupt misapplication of law constitutes deprivation of rights under color of law
18 U.S. Code § 242
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242
Did you bother to read that before linking to it? It’s completely inapplicable. Nobody tried to deprive Trump of any constitutional or statutory right, privilege, or immunity because of his race, color, or his being an alien. Or for any other reason, for that matter, but for this purpose those are the only grounds that count. (Note, by the way, all the commenters here who think that aliens have no rights, or that the law should treat them differently than citizens; this law explicitly makes that a crime.)
Dumbass, it’s 100% applicable –
Invoking 25A must involve some form of incapacity, e.g. stroke, unconsciousness from other accident or trauma, or similar.
None of that applies to Trump’s condition or physical state. Therefore, any attempt to utilize 25A for any other purpose is improper by definition.
Do you even think before responding?
Actually, we already know the answer to that.
Withdrawn.
These people have threatened our country and our lives.
We need to REMOVE THEM from society in SELF-DEFENSE.
“None dare call it The Deep State.”
This cabal, including Comey, began before Trump was even elected President and continued after McCabe was fired.
That’s shocking, said no one, not ensnared in the never ending propaganda cycle of the corrupt state.
Frankly, the group’s failure to attempt the 25th Amendment route only made things worse.
Could anybody imagine the reaction of Pence and Trump’s cabinet to an action like this ?
They would all have been fired.
Don’t forget it was Rosenstein that got McCabe fired. Andy just dropped a dime on him. He’s going down and he knows he’s going down. He’s letting everyone one who attended the ‘coup meeting’ that he’s not going down alone.
Rosenstein also had Mccabe removed from the FBI’s Russia investigation
The obvious question is how the Republicans – with control of Congress for two years – have implemented so few consequences for ALL the treasonous bastards.
Swamp Uni-Party. With very limited exceptions, all of Congress is in it.
This works both ways. Trump needs to step up his attempt at draining the Swamp. When Democrats inevitable take the Presidency after Trump’s 8 years in office, we’ll want Trump’s people being the holdovers into the next administration. If any of Obama’s people are still in by that time, there’s no telling what they’ll be able to un-accomplish.
Some of us are old enough to remember the demands by Democrats for Comey to be fired. So DJT made a move that should have drawn nearly universal bipartisan support, and yet members of the FBI and DOJ pretend that they think this is some sort of national emergency.
These people are bought.
The fact that we came so close to a coup is frightening. The sheer arrogance on the part of Comey, McCabe and others is astonishing. Every single one of these should be fired and charged criminally. I suppose Comey, the weasel, neglected to cover any of this in his book. The DOJ should clean house immediately. I still recall testimony from Lisa Page’s boyfriend, whose name escapes me, and the arrogance by him that anyone, even Congress, would question him. If heads don’t roll over this, then this country is going downhill at a rate that none of us can stop.
“Lack of self awareness” is the perfect term. McCabe doesn’t realize that he is nailing his and his co-conspirators own coffin. They were, and I would argue still are, trying to usurp the will of the people who elected Trump. Treason? Coup? Espionage? I’m sure there’s a legal name for it.
.
What I wonder is, after realizing the 25th Amendment ploy would not fly, what other plan did they put in motion that hasn’t been revealed. These are not people that would just give up and say, “Oh well. We can’t get him with the 25th Amendment play. What do we do next, Rod?” And then Rosenstein says, “Let’s all go to Denny’s and get a Grand Slam on me.” My point is that this was just round one. A precursor to whatever they came up with next. We do know that part of that was using Mueller to attack everyone around Trump and try to get them to turn on him.
.
Where is the press? They should be all over this news. Given the fact that the press was in the room (figuratively but maybe literally) when Mueller approved the attack on Roger Stone, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t part of the planning with McCabe too.
Ignore the down thumb – should have been an up (sorry, missed hitting reply) –
And what about Paul Ryan?
Time to investigate him — obstruction of Trump’s agenda – leaving the border mess, budget nightmare, etc to Pelosi & Co.
To accomplish what you desire we need an AG with both balls and ethics. Barr, being a former swamp dweller, isn’t high on my list for the latter.
Remember Hillary aghast at the idea of not respecting the results of the election? Yeah, good times.
The (D) party and some (R)s seriously preferred a coup. And nothing will happen to those who tried.
Rosenstein’s office released the following statement in response:
“The Deputy Attorney General again rejects Mr. McCabe’s recitation of events as inaccurate and factually incorrect. The Deputy Attorney General never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references … There is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment. Finally, the Deputy Attorney General never spoke to Mr. Comey about appointing a Special Counsel. The Deputy Attorney General in fact appointed Special Counsel Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation.”
Huh. McCabe’s word against Rosenstein’s words/official statement. Which scheming liar are we to believe?
Grand jury time?
Let the recriminations commence. The DAG gave Mueller too broad a mandate more commensurate with trying to unseat a president than investigating “collusion” and in so doing creating process crimes which did not exist prior to this. Everyone at that level is dirty.
Amazingly, McCabe justifies his coup attempt by the very hoax Comey, Clinton, Obama, Lynch, Rosenstein, and the FBI concocted.
Let’s pray that William Barr will get to the bottom of this whole debacle. How can McCabe release a book and profit from said book while admitted to a crime? Same goes for Comey and his lies. It’s a given that the DOJ and FBI have dirty hands in this but I don’t see how they’ll ever pay a price.
Why should he not? “Son of Sam” laws are unconstitutional and have therefore been struck down.
Boys and girls —
This never would have happened without the collusion of the U.S. media. For two hundred years, the press safeguarded the citizenry from the apparatchik. The press was the check in the check-and-balance equation.
Somewhere along the way, that model became corrupted. Watergate was a seminal moment. In Watergate the press played a key—and necessary—role in getting to the heart of Nixon’s actions and causing him to be held accountable. He got what he deserved.
But since then, the press has gone off the rails: they no longer represent the citizenry; they no longer serve as a check on the government’s power. On the contrary, the press has allowed its own views to color its reporting to the extent that it no longer reflects the truth and the facts. It only reflects how the reporters view the truth and the facts.
So much of the media is concentrated in the big, blue cities that it has colored (heh) its view of our country. They can’t believe anyone would have voted for Trump because in their worlds, no one did vote for Trump. Salena Zito has written extensively—and well—on this situation.
A large percentage of our population is uninformed about what is going on. Thus—because of the media’s bias—these people have become terribly ill-informed. I know some really bright, accomplished, and successful people who are totally clueless as to the DOJ/FBI’s attempt to disenfranchise this president. These people hear what they want to hear. And unfortunately, what they hear from the main stream media is a steady stream of bias, unfairness, and untruth.
So until we once again have a meaningful check on the power of the elitist, swamp-dwelling power-grabbers inside the beltway, our great republic will continue to be in severe peril. As long as the media is not held accountable—to the standard that the media made Nixon be held accountable—nothing will change. Nothing will improve.
Heavy sigh.
If I may add — This is why it’s so important to respond energetically and generously when WAJ and the folks at Legal Insurrection pass the hat.
Can you image what life would be like if the only information we had was what we got from NBC News? 🙁
A friend and his wife get almost all of their news from NBC and the AP articles the local paper uses to fill the front page.
I can’t count the times they have looked at me like I was crazy because I cite something that they have never ever heard before.
fortunately, my 40 year friendship with him has never had much of any politics involved, so I just find something else to do when the news comes on when I’m visiting
Interesting how the MSM/DNC reaction has gone from “How DARE you suggest that we would do such a thing!” to “How DARE you oppose our patriotic efforts to remove a dangerous person from the Presidency!”.
While the actions being portrayed here are known to be relatively accurate, the reasons for these actions are not.
This was not about an existential threat to the NATION produced by Trump’s firing of Comey. It was brought about because every single one of the people involved in the Trump surveillance and Trumps era leaks had committed criminal acts which could see them convicted and sent to prison. Comey was to be the FBI/DOJ firewall, as he had been in the Clinton investigations. When he got canned, this left a big hole in the defenses of the criminal, anti-Trump group. This was the reason for the recusal of Sessions and the appointment of Rosenstein; a close associate of Mueller, Comey and others in the group. It was the reason for the appointment of Mueller as Special Council. It was the reason for the continuing leaks to the MSM. It was, at bottom, an ongoing criminal conspiracy to protect members of the government who, during thee previous administration, had engaged in illegal activities or knowingly condoned said illegal activities up to and including the POTUS, Barack Obama. And, it is still going on today.
McCabe is now attempting to spin this activity as being done solely because those involved did not agree with Trump’s projected policies. It was simply a political disagreement. Not an attempt to protect the actors from potential criminal conviction for past criminal acts. Unfortunately, with the culture of corruption existing in DC, he will probably succeed.
Even Alan Dershowitz has come out calling it a coup d’etat attempt, but it has yet to make it to MSM.
I remember when we executed traitors.