McCabe Out
"Stepped Down?" Or "Removed"?
White House Press Briefing Upcoming; McCabe Will Most Likely be a Topic

On FoxNews now: McCabe is out. Whether he resigned or was fired, I don't know. But it appears that Christopher Wray bothered to read the FISA Abuse Memo yesterday, and now McCabe is gone.

Reports say he's "stepping down," but remember, he wanted to cling to his sinecure until March to collect his full pension.

Why would he voluntarily "step down" now? Maybe he was encouraged to step down.

Update: Fox says he was "removed," but I'm not sure how careful that word choice is.

On this point, make sure you read Mollie Hemingway's piece from today about how a major leak to the press originated with McCabe contacting Reince Priebus.

Long story short:

There was a flutter in the press about various #Russia claims, sourced to four officials.

McCabe called Reince Priebus to tell him that the claims made in the leaks weren't true.

Priebus asked McCabe to tell the press that, as he was getting swamped by questions.

McCabe said he didn't know if he could tell the press that, but would check.

Then, according to Howard Kurtz:

Now, a week later, CNN was airing a breaking news story naming Priebus. According to 'multiple U.S. officials,' the network said, 'the FBI rejected a White House request to publicly knock down media reports about communications between Donald Trump's associates and Russians known to U.S. intelligence.'

Priebus was stunned by the implication that he was pressuring law enforcement. Had he been set up? Why was the FBI leaking this information when one of its top officials had initiated the conversation?

Hemingway notes dryly that the "source" feeding this story of Priebus pressuring officials to spin for Trump sounds a lot like McCabe:

The story is sourced to a "U.S. law enforcement official" who seems to know an awful lot about McCabe (e.g. "A law enforcement official says McCabe didn't discuss aspects of the case but wouldn’t say exactly what McCabe told Priebus.")

She also notes that this is a pattern with Comey and McCabe: Comey, for example, did in fact tell the president on three separate occasions that he was not under any investigation, but refused to tell that to the press, and also, simultaneously, insinuated that the president was under investigation.

Good riddance. Glad he's getting fired before his pension kicks in.

Not Officially Off The Payroll? Oh, this is droll. He'll be stepping down from his high-ranking post but will remain a federal employee doing, presumably, fuck-all for two months, so that he can collect his full pension in March.

But he was still forced out of his position of Deputy Director of the FBI, it seems.

Update: A commenter says that #SassyJim Acosta is "reporting" that McCabe stepped down only because he is "tired of the president criticizing him," and for no other reason.

Pull the other one.

McCabe Out
"Stepped Down?" Or "Removed"?
White House Press Briefing Upcoming; McCabe Will Most Likely be a Topic&bodytext=On FoxNews now: McCabe is out. Whether he resigned or was fired, I don't know. But it appears that Christopher Wray bothered to read the FISA Abuse Memo yesterday, and now McCabe is gone. Reports say he's "stepping down," but...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 12:43 PM

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