President Trump celebrated the firing of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, just two days before McCabe was eligible for his pension, calling it a “great day for democracy.”
“Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy,” Trump wrote in a tweet just after midnight Friday, a few hours after the news broke. “Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”
McCabe has given a very different version of events. In a strongly-worded statement, he said his firing was trying to discredit him as a witness in the investigation into the ouster of former FBI director James Comey and part of a broader push by the Trump administration to “politicize” law enforcement.
The President and his allies have for months smeared the 21-year FBI veteran as a partisan, in part because his wife ran and lost a Democratic state legislative campaign in 2015.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions made the decision to fire McCabe, citing a yet-to-be-released Justice Department inspector general report that he said determined McCabe made an “unauthorized disclosure” to the press and “lacked candor” in the IG’s investigation.
The IG report into the handling of matters related to the 2016 election touches on leaks McCabe condoned to the media about the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
McCabe stepped down in January ahead of the IG report’s release, using his unpaid vacation days to go on leave.
Trump followed up with two more tweets later Saturday, criticizing “corruption” at the DOJ and FBI and mocking the “Fake News” reaction to over McCabe’s firing.
As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State. #DrainTheSwamp
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2018
The Fake News is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 17, 2018
This post has been updated.
They joy of trump’s fall and the giant splat it makes will be satisfying.
Our §resident is a sick little f*cker.
Should that be “unused”?
Satisfying? A GROSS understatement. It will be more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdvITn5cAVc“A great day for democracy.” Once again, war is peace, freedom is slavery and truth is lies.