I can’t decide whether Adam Serwer’s observations in his latest piece for Atlantic are poorly informed or mischievous:
Andrew McCabe, a former acting and deputy FBI director who had drawn the ire of President Trump, was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions late Friday evening, a decision that raises troubling questions about the independence of both the Justice Department and the FBI.
The post at Lawfare on McCabe’s dismissal summarizes the situation well. We don’t know whether it was justified or not. We’ll need to wait to determine that as more information emerges in the fullness of time.
The Department of Justice is not an independent branch of government. It is part of the Executive Branch and does the bidding of the president. You may not like that but it’s the structure of our government. For my entire adult life DoJ has been thoroughly political. When the president appoints his brother as Attorney General what else do you think it would be? Every succeeding AG has been the hatchet man for the administration he or she served. The present DoJ merely presents the illusion of independence because Trump didn’t dismiss and replace all of the appointees when he took office, in my view a neglectful error, foolish.
They’re not independent; they’re on the other side.
It’s fair to observe that we must see the reports and evidence. However, in an interview with the last head of the OPS, and per the two attorneys I’ve listened to most throughout all this, Dershowitz and Turley, it seems completely implausible that this dismissal was politically inspired or that the evidence will prove damning.
McCabe is adopting the trial in the media strategy by accusing Trump. He knows full well media allies and Democrat sympathizers will carry his water. However, it’s a strategy that will be short lived.
OPR
I was reading all the political backlash from the McCabe firing, and found it to be a dismal display of whitewashing unseemly behavior conducted by people at the top of our government totem pole. All those indignant tweets reminded me of mements in parenting, when I caught my son, dead to rights, doing something wrong, and his defense was to go on a screeching offensive of his supposed “innocence.”
It all was such a calculating ploy to divert attention away from the truth – as is now the case of not only McCabe, but a whole cast of others, in what is appearing, more and more, to be a malicious deep state cover-up.
I have no opinion about the McCabe firing. I’m waiting for reports from the IG and/or Mueller.
I understand, Dave. Its the intellectually pure and perhaps lawyerly position. Both Turley and Dershowitz felt the need to caveat, but then opened up. Those familiar with the working of the two bodies who made the recommendation basically have said political?, unwarranted?…….. not a chance.
It leaves only the issue of proportionality; did the punishment match the crime. Turley pointed out that what McCabe is charged with is legally indistinguishable from what Flynn was coerced to plea to. Dershowitz concurred. Further, I wonder if McCabe “lost” his pension, or just a portion of benefits.
I chose to watch CNN just to see what their response would be. It was nothing but that Trump was a meanie. They didn’t report that it was basically a jury of McCabes peers. They also didn’t report that the IG investigation was initiated and cheered by Democrats at inception. (because it was to look into Hillary hacking) How conveniently they forget.
Trial in the media has merits, especially when the media is sympathetic. But I bet McCabes steely eyed lawyers are working on real live legal defenses, not victimhood at the hands of Trump.
At the moment it appears just a portion of benefits.