Ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe Laments Recent Agent Firings: ‘Moment of Terror’
Speaking to CNN colleague Anderson Cooper about the recent firings of FBI agents who participated in the political persecution of President Donald Trump on Monday, disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said, “This is totally unprecedented.” According to McCabe, who claimed to have spoken to more agents in the last four days than in the last four years, “This is a moment of terror for these people.”
Here’s how McCabe described the current state of affairs inside the FBI:
The rank and file agents and analysts … Those people are never touched by the political winds that blow through every four years….The work they do is lawful. It’s within FBI policies and not doing the work is not really an option for them….To be targeted in this way for termination, or retribution simply for doing their job on a major national security case is incomprehensible to them….It is a place in utter disarray right now. People are worried about how am I going to pay the bills? How am I gonna support my family?…If you get fired, you’re done. That’s the end of your reputation, your ability to get a new job, you lose your pay, you lose your chance at a pension, you lose your health insurance. This is a moment of terror for these people.It is absolutely disgraceful that they’re being put through this in the middle of some political gamesmanship or act of retribution. They don’t deserve to be treated this way. It’s unlawful and it’s disgusting.
“Totally unprecedented?” Let’s provide this repellent fraud with a reality check, shall we?
McCabe is no stranger to revenge. Perhaps his empathy for the agents now losing their jobs stems from a twinge of guilt. It was McCabe who, in July 2016, launched Crossfire Hurricane – the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russian government to win the election. This marked the opening salvo in the Justice Department’s and FBI’s nearly decade-long campaign to destroy Donald Trump.
In May 2017, after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, McCabe, in a clear act of retaliation, opened an investigation targeting Trump specifically. Without evidence, he alleged that Trump had acted as an agent of Russia and colluded with Kremlin officials to secure his victory. He also initiated a criminal investigation into Trump for possible obstruction of justice.
Days later, the FBI’s probe was handed off to special counsel Robert Mueller, whose 22-month investigation became an unjustified smear campaign that dominated the first two years of Trump’s presidency. Mueller was appointed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was reportedly angry over Trump’s decision to publicize a memo he (Rosenstein) had written justifying Comey’s dismissal.
In December 2019, an exhaustive report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz exposed serious FBI misconduct at the highest levels. The report revealed that as early as January 2017, the FBI knew that British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s infamous dossier—a compilation of salacious and unverified allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia—was fraudulent. During the FBI’s first interview with Steele’s primary sub-source in January 2017 (and two subsequent interviews by May 2017), the source admitted that the dossier’s claims had been made up in a Moscow bar and bore no resemblance to the truth.
The FBI had already used the now-debunked dossier as the basis for its initial October 2016 application and its January 2017 renewal request for a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
With the full knowledge that the dossier, deemed the “central and essential” component of their application, was false, the FBI submitted two additional renewal requests to the FISA Court.
The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into President Trump continued, and until his firing, Director Comey used his private meetings with Trump as opportunities to set him up for potential “crimes.”
Notably, in future Congressional hearings, both Comey and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page testified that as of May 2017, the FBI still had no evidence of Trump colluding with Russia. Furthermore, Comey claimed that Trump’s request to leave then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn alone was an act of obstruction of justice.
McCabe was fired in 2018 for lying to federal investigators on at least four occasions. In a statement announcing his termination, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote, “McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions.”
His firing came just days before his planned retirement, stripping him of his pension. McCabe later sued the Justice Department and, three years later, reached a settlement. The agreement “expunges from his personnel folder references to having been fired and entitles McCabe … to his full pension.” It should be noted that by the time of the settlement, DOJ leadership had changed hands. McCabe reached his deal under Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Although this summary only scratches the surface of the earliest days of the deep state’s coordinated plot against Trump, it clearly highlights McCabe’s central role. He was a key figure in orchestrating what was, up until then, the most egregious and consequential fraud ever committed against a political candidate, and later, a sitting president, in American history.
Having faced no real consequences, they kept upping the ante, ultimately resorting to lawfare as their final weapon to bring him down. These individuals abused their power.
Trump is not targeting rank-and-file agents. He is pursuing those who knowingly took part in the relentless plot to destroy him.
They must be held accountable for their corruption. And deep down, the disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe probably knows it too.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY