An extraordinary acceleration
The Post sums up the state of play:
McCabe’s firing — coupled with the comments from Trump and his personal attorney, John Dowd on Saturday — marked an extraordinary acceleration of the battle between the president and the special counsel, whose probe Trump has long dismissed as a politically motivated witch hunt.
Or to put it another way, an extraordinary acceleration of the battle between Trump and the rule of law.
[Trump’s personal lawyer John] Dowd said in a Saturday morning statement, “I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier.”
Dowd’s defiance was a dramatic shift for a legal team that had long pledged to cooperate fully with Mueller. The White House has responded to requests for documents, and senior officials have sat for hours of interviews with the special counsel’s investigators.
They’re testing, testing, to see what they can get away with.
Trump has been known to direct surrogates to make bold claims publicly as a way of market-testing ideas. Dowd declined to say whether he consulted with the president before issuing his statement. “I never discuss my communications with my client,” he said.
White House officials denied that this is all coordinated.
Still, officials acknowledged that Trump shares his lawyer’s sentiment that the Mueller investigation should come to a swift conclusion.
“We were all promised collusion or nullification of his election or impeachment,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “We were promised something that never came to be.”
Well that’s Trump-level stupid. It’s a process, it’s ongoing, there have been indictments. There is no “never” here, because it was never a ten days and it’s over thing; an investigation takes as long as it takes.
In a Sunday morning tweet, Trump accused Comey of lying in testimony to Congress as he was questioned by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa): “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?” He said strongly “never, no.”
Trump in the past has masqueraded as a fake publicist by the name of John Miller or John Barron to leak flattering or boastful details about himself to tabloid reporters.
Pointed.
In another tweet, Trump repeated his now-familiar attacks on McCabe and Comey. Some Trump allies said they worry he is playing with fire by taunting the FBI.
“This is open, all-out war. And guess what? The FBI’s going to win,” said one ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “You can’t fight the FBI. They’re going to torch him.”
Let’s hope so.
Trump’s lawyers have long spoken privately about what they view as political bias inside the FBI and in the early stages of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to two top White House advisers.
Since late summer, Dowd and attorney Jay Sekulow have warned the president about what they saw as mounting evidence of pro-Clinton bias among senior FBI officials.
If that’s true, and to the extent that it’s true, I wonder how much of it is “political” bias and how much of it is competence bias or law bias or both. Clinton’s a lawyer and competent; Trump is neither.
Dowd and White House lawyer Ty Cobb have publicly asserted that they are working collaboratively and cooperatively with Mueller’s investigators, voluntarily providing dozens of witnesses and hundreds of thousands of pages of records. Dowd told The Post in January that Trump was providing the special counsel “the most transparent response in history by a president.”
But behind the scenes, Dowd has told colleagues that the probe was poisoned. He has blamed it on an anti-Trump faction of law enforcement officials he derisively calls “the Comey crowd,” which includes McCabe, who was Comey’s deputy when the FBI began investigating Russia’s intrusions and possible links to the Trump campaign.
But there are so many reasons to be anti-Trump, most of them not political. Comey and McCabe know how to think and reason; Trump pisses on the very idea that thought and reasoning are necessary. If they do prefer Clinton to Trump it could be for that kind of reason – she’s an adult, she can talk coherently, she’s well informed. You could sum it up as “professionalism” if you liked. Trump is like a toddler inflated with a bicycle pump. You can’t have a coherent conversation with Trump, because he doesn’t know how – all he knows how to do is grab the mic and babble chaotically until someone takes it away from him. Maybe Comey and McCabe are simply allergic to Trump on a professional level (and also of course know that that level of stupidity is dangerous for the country).
Democrats on Saturday quickly rushed to protect the Mueller probe, as former national security officials defended McCabe’s character and raised questions about the manner in which he was fired.
Sen. Mark R. Warner (Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted: “Every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, needs to speak up in defense of the Special Counsel. Now.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned of “severe consequences from both Democrats and Republicans” should Trump try to curtail or interfere with Mueller’s investigation.
I hope he’s right about the Republicans part.
I do imagine there is some bias in the FBI, among other law enforcement agencies, against suspected major criminals under investigation. There may also be bias against elected officials who do not respect their independence of political pressure. And there’s likely some against people anxious to erode the rule of law in the United States.
The first of those may be a problem sometimes. Certainly it is when (e.g.) we’re talking about poor young black men under investigation, particularly when it’s “investigation” in dead of night and out of public view.
But that doesn’t apply here – it’s the polar opposite case, in fact – and the rest of it is entirely appropriate bias.
In short, the FBI’s earning Trump’s ire precisely by doing its job.
Curious to see how many Republicans and right-wingers are letting so much slide when perpetrated by a Republican in the White House, when they would balk at the slightest “provocation” by the Seekrit Mooslum, Socilaizing Death Panel Kommie Kenyan Obama. With lots of practice tilting at windmills and jumping at imagined spectres for the previous eight years, they’re missing an opportunity to resist the actual, corrupt, dictatorial encroachment and overreach of an actual, would-be dictator. Except it’s their own side doing it. That seems to make a big difference. Let’s hope there are enough Republicans capable of resisting the seductive Siren song of dictatorship. Unless there are enough who see a personal, political downside for themselves as it is clear that up to now they really don’t give a shit for the country as a whole or even the Rule of Law as a concept, I don’t see it happening.
I remember all the reporting of leaks from the FBI during the 2016 campaign–they were all about how the FBI (and in particular the NY bureau) was very anti-Clinton. Why would that suddenly have changed? Trump’s blathering that the investigation is being run by Clinton supporters is just bizarre, especially his portrayal of Comey. I mean, it was COMEY who arguably handed the presidency to Trump with his Clinton email presser and subsequent reopening of the closed investigation just days before the election. If Comey has turned on Trump, it’s due to Trump’s own treatment of him, not because he is some sort of Clintonista.
YNNB,
It’s pathetic how many of these people are so scared to rock the boat. I understand when ordinary people aren’t willing to risk their jobs to blow the whistle on their employers. But members of Congress, White House senior staff, etc., almost all had nice jobs before their current position and will have nice ones after. And yet, now we learn that, when Trump insisted that senior staff sign illegal and unconstitutional nondisclosure agreements, the Chief of Staff and White House Counsel — who are supposed to work for the government, not the Dear Leader — shrugged and said, ah, fuck it, give the baby his rattle.
“…how many of these people are so scared to rock the boat.’
And how many of these Republican boat non-rockers in Congress did nothing but obstruct during the Obama administration and likely would have done the same for a Clinton presidency. They perhaps would have pictured the respective Democratic presidents as the “boat rockers” and themselves as forces of continuity, legitimacy and stability. But Trump’s actions are unprecidented, illegitimate and destabilizing, so that kinda blows that line of reasoning. Guess we’ll have to go with old fashioned, self-interested hypocrisy.
They’re not afraid to rock the boat, their interest is in milking the cow until it is of no more use to them.
Unlike Trump’s insistence that the FBI start investigating Clinton. That had nothing to do with politics, of course. That had nothing to do with a witch hunt, or crowds yelling “Lock her up”, except that, of course, they were yelling that because she was a criminal. Right?
I share Trump’s wish that this come to a speedy end, but I suspect my preferred end would not jibe well with his, and I recognize that these things take time.
iknklast, I often get the feeling that Trump’s ongoing hatred of all things Hillary is less political than it is personal. He loathes her not because she’s a Democrat but because she opposed him, and Trump takes opposition personally. Worse still, she’s a woman who opposed him, and we know what he thinks about women.
He’s the same with Obama. Not only was he a better president than Trump could ever be, not only is he smarter, better educated, more popular – hell, a better person in all respects, he has the temerity to be all of this and be black as well.
Trump doesn’t have an ounce of political allegiance to the Republicans; he would just as easily have run on a Democrat ticket had the opportunity presented itself. His only allegiance is to Donald Trump, and anybody opposing him is the enemy. As I see it, the only thing political in his calls for Hillary to be investigated is the fact that he’s trying to use his political position to make it happen. I’d go as far as to say that had things been different and Trump had gone with the Democrats, he’d have had the crowds chanting to lock up Cruz, McCain, or Romney.
AoS, I see opposing him as being political in nature, though the personal hatred is there. Also, if it is personal, that makes it more of a witch hunt, not less. and for Trump, I don’t think he separates personal from political; the political scene at present is all about Trump, Trump, and more Trump. He is the exalted leader, and those who fail to exalt him properly, or who try to point out to him that he serves us, or try to explain why he can’t just go around firing anyone he wants to, are enemies of the state. So where does the line between personal and political end with Trump? You said it yourself, his only allegiance is to Donald Trump, but he also expects the country’s only allegiance to be to Donald Trump, and by extension, the world’s only allegiance to be to Donald Trump.
Re #8 and 9 – “L’etat, c’est moi” all over again. (Well, plus accents I’ve no clue how to generate on this keyboard.)
Jeff, I think you did the accent just fine. But I’m an American, so what do I know about proper French? ;-)