FBI Agents Association Set Fire to the McCabe Firing with Epic Non-Statement
It didn’t take long after Andrew McCabe’s firing as the deputy director of the FBI — just mere hours before he was due to hit retirement age and collect a full pension — for the embattled lawman to fight back with a fiery statement in which he accused the Trump administration of de-legitimizing the FBI.
McCabe railed off line after line of invective against the president (even though the president wasn’t involved in the firing) and the Justice Department, insisting he’d done nothing wrong.
And what did the FBI Agents Association have to say about McCabe’s firing? Surely, they backed him up, right?
Nope. In fact, they didn’t really say a whole lot at all.
According to Fox News, McCabe was fired Friday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions days before he could collect a lifetime pension after a report from the Office of the Inspector General alleged McCabe mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
“After an extensive and fair investigation and according to Department of Justice procedure, the Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) provided its report on allegations of misconduct by Andrew McCabe to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR),” Sessions’ statement read.
“The FBI’s OPR then reviewed the report and underlying documents and issued a disciplinary proposal recommending the dismissal of Mr. McCabe. Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.
“The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and accountability. As the OPR proposal stated, ‘all FBI employees know that lacking candor under oath results in dismissal and that our integrity is our brand.'”
McCabe quickly hit back at Sessions and the administration.
“This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally,” McCabe’s statement read.
“It is part of this Administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel’s work.
“For the last year and a half, my family and I have been the targets of an unrelenting assault on our reputation and my service to this country,” the statement continued.
“Articles too numerous to count have leveled every sort of false, defamatory and degrading allegation against us. The President’s tweets have amplified and exacerbated it all. He called for my firing. He called for me to be stripped of my pension after more than 20 years of service. And all along we have said nothing, never wanting to distract from the mission of the FBI by addressing the lies told and repeated about us. No more.”
It is worth noting, as The New York Times did, that “The president is not involved in the firing decisions of career employees like Mr. McCabe. His firing had been recommended by veteran disciplinary officials.”
However, the folks at The Times insisted that “Mr. Trump’s statements loom large over the decision, which is why previous presidents have typically refrained from wading into law enforcement and personnel matters.”
So, what did the FBI Agents Association have to say about McCabe’s firing? Not a whole lot of anything.
“FBI Special Agents put their lives on the line every day to defend our country from criminal and national security threats,” a statement from FBIAA President Thomas O’Connor said.
“Since its founding, the FBIAA has worked in cooperation with the Bureau and with Congress to develop personnel procedures that simultaneously guarantee the professionalism of the FBI and the rights of Special Agents. While the FBIAA does not comment on personnel matters, the Association remains fully committed to ensuring that every FBIAA member is provided appropriate procedural protections. The FBIAA also strongly believes that personnel decisions should never be politicized.”
Statement from FBIAA President Thomas O’Connor (@tfoconnor83):
“FBI Special Agents put their lives on the line every day to defend our country from criminal and national security threats.”
(1/3)
— FBI Agents Association (@FBIAgentsAssoc) March 17, 2018
“Since its founding, the FBIAA has worked in cooperation with the Bureau and with Congress to develop personnel procedures that simultaneously guarantee the professionalism of the FBI and the rights of Special Agents.”
(2/3)
— FBI Agents Association (@FBIAgentsAssoc) March 17, 2018
“While the FBIAA does not comment on personnel matters, the Association remains fully committed to ensuring that every FBIAA member is provided appropriate procedural protections. The FBIAA also strongly believes that personnel decisions should never be politicized.”
(3/3)
— FBI Agents Association (@FBIAgentsAssoc) March 17, 2018
Let me translate that into emoji: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For all of McCabe’s fiery invective, there wasn’t a whole lot of support there. Perhaps it’s because the fact that the people McCabe are accusing of being political shills are, quoth The Times “veteran disciplinary officials” who had likely been with the Department of Justice long before Trump was in the White House and had recommended his firing.
Or, maybe it’s the fact that the reason he was terminated after those 20 years of service was how he handled the biggest case of his career.
Or maybe it’s the fact that the whole “It’s like the Saturday Night Massacre all over again ZOMG!” narrative that the media’s cooked up and McCabe is playing into tacitly delegitimizes the parts of the DOJ that aren’t being weaponized for political reasons.
Either way, it’s a very telling non-statement statement — and a very big sign Andrew McCabe oughtn’t expect to get much support from his former colleagues in the Bureau.
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