Know-nothing McCabe
Andrew McCabe works for the FBI. He was the deputy director beginning in February of 2016, then from May to August he was the FBI’s director, and now he’s the deputy again.
On Wednesday McCabe was called in front of the House Intelligence Committee and questioned for seven hours:
On a number of occasions, when asked about what in the [Trump] dossier had been corroborated by the FBI, McCabe gave answers such as ”” these are not precise quotes ”” I can’t answer that, or I don’t know how to answer that. Indeed, that was McCabe’s answer when he was asked for the most important piece of information in the dossier that the FBI had been able to verify.
At one point, McCabe was reminded that another top FBI official had months ago told the House that the bureau had not been able to corroborate the dossier. McCabe’s response was noncommittal.
After the questioning established that McCabe would not verify any substantive allegation in the dossier, he was asked if he stood by its veracity. McCabe said he did.
All this information about McCabe’s testimony comes from leaks, by the way, because it’s a closed-door session. From what I’ve read, it’s not clear to me whether McCabe was saying he just didn’t know the answers or whether he was saying he didn’t feel it was right to offer the answers. If he thought that his responses were unlikely to remain a secret, one can understand why. But if that was it, why not say so?
Here’s a little more:
When pushed for examples of what was verified in the anti-Trump dossier, McCabe was only able to identify the fact that Trump campaign advisor Carter Page traveled to Moscow ”” McCabe could not even verify anything about the meetings that Page supposedly had.
“The sources said that when asked when he learned that the dossier had been funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, McCabe claimed he could not recall ”” despite the reported existence of documents with McCabe’s own signature on them establishing his knowledge of the dossier’s financing and provenance.”
Clear as mud.
We knew that the swamp is vast. I don’t think we realized just how deep it is.
At this moment I have no confidence in anyone who was touched by the previous administration. I used to think that corruption was primarily a feature of third world countries, or petty local politicians. My thinking has changed.
Well schucks, I was raised to always distrust government, especially DC. None of this surprises me. My default position is to assume goverment officials will lie to my face and then smirk in private about the naive rubes.
The messiah cult weaponized every DC agency to an extent never imagined before. The FBI needs a thorough purge at the higher levels, as does every other agency and department. And, examples must be made, I suggest Trump starts with the IRS and a few of its former employees.
Oldflyer – “I used to think that corruption was primarily a feature of third world countries, or petty local politicians.”
And 0 grew up where? Cut his teeth around whom? His heroes are from which slice of humanity?
No surprises at all.
We have plenty of examples of security-types saying “I can’t tell that in an open meeting” and having the committee either go into closed session, or restrict the members attending.
However, I don’t have too much sympathy for McCabe worrying about someone leaking his testimony (if he ever gives any), considering how the Democrats have weaponized leaking from the get-go of Trump’s tenure.
This, however, verges on Kafka-esque:
“After the questioning established that McCabe would not verify any substantive allegation in the dossier, he was asked if he stood by its veracity. McCabe said he did.”
Cue Inigo Montoya on the meaning of “verify”.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
The top 15% of the FBI should be retired and the organization should be restaffed with lower level agents who still care about the law and the country. I have a daughter who is an agent and she told me in September 2016 that she would not vote for Hillary. She should have been a natural Hillary voter. I thought it was significant. I still think that Comey might have been facing an agent revolt if he had not held that press conference.
“Know-nothing McCabe”
I think you misspelled “liar.”
But my spellcheck could be off a bit.
Cite him for contempt of Congress. If the resolution passes then it is referrred to DOJ for prosecution. Quit screwing around.
Corn:
Right. A damn lot of good it did with Eric Holder. Contempt of Congress is meaningless. McCabe is the perfect candidate for the solution from the Oxbow Incident. Rope, lamp post. . .
I am just going to put it out there again- Steele did not author the dossier- it was authored by the group that consisted of Simpson and his wife, Ohr and his wife, and likely McCabe, Strzok, Page and anyone else at that meeting in Andy’s office. McCabe had to be circumspect this week because the truth is far more damning to him than the fact that the dossier is basically unsupported in any significant way.
F
Congress didn’t follow the full procedure. See above. A federal judge can jail someone until they speak. In state court, people who didn’t pay child support and could pay went to jail.
The most frustrating part of these investigations is Congress’ inability to do anything about it, even if they somehow obtain the truth.
The GOP won’t even collectively punish agencies with budget cuts (assuming we’re still doing anything as quaint as passing budgets instead of continuing resolutions).
McCabe just perjured himself (I assume testimony to Congress is covered by that). There’s no way that he’s unaware who funded the dossier.
If he wants to play games, then Congress should make him testify in some situation with dire consequences for perjury, like in front of a grand jury.
In that case, I imagine he’d plead the Fifth. That would be politically useful to get on record.
Let us quit kidding ourselves. The enemy is the Federal Civil Service Code.
It takes about a year for a Federale to be fired for cause.
Meanwhile, who is going to re-staff those vacancies?
One of the common points of next gen conspiracy theories and facts is how little they trust the government. In some ways, they are more paranoid and anti government than me or conservatives in general.
How does that work to convince Leftists about JFK? It doesn’t, they do something entirely different for the Blue Team.
The most frustrating part of these investigations is Congress’ inability to do anything about it, even if they somehow obtain the truth.
Snorts. Congress does what they are told by the Deep State: selected, not elected.
One interesting incidence concerned Eisenhower when he wanted to go to Groom Lake, a classified military base that apparently was constructed using partial black funding. They told him that neither him, the US President, nor Congress, had the Need to Know, to see the information under classification. Somewhere in Canada, a journalist or military source requested information about nuclear reactors and UFOs. He was given info on the reactors, but was told his security clearance was not enough for UFOs. They should have went with the Neither confirm or deny storyline.
Eisenhower just called up his military boys and told them either they could give him the guided tour, or he would call in a few battalions and march up there for an inspection.
There are certain things that Congress doesn’t have the need to know. The Deep State is only one of them.
Trum wanting to clear the swamp, with his backers, was quaint and naive. I was like, “let’s see if you actually survive long enough in DC to matter first”.
Of course people backing Trum probably thought that was paranoid. What about now, FBI is the Government We Trust, somehow.
Mike K:
I’d be interested in knowing what your daughter felt about the partisanship of the rank and file agents.
During the primaries, I wrote a post here saying that the first priority of any Republican president should be civil service reform, without which they will be able to accomplish little. The civil service laws were designed in large part to prevent the capture of the bureaucracy by one party, exactly the situation we have today.
PJ Media reviewed the resumes of all the first 115 of Holder’s hires to fill top civil service spots, which they had to drag out with court orders. Every Single One was a leftwing radical hack, not one a conservative, Republican or moderate.
These hires were at the forefront of Obama’s “fundamental transformation”, the lawsuits against state IDs and abortion restrictions, the gender wars allowing anyone to use the bathroom of their choice, trannies in the military, building the “rape culture” narrative, forcing the universities to have kangaroo courts that did not allow males accused of sexual “crimes” due process, the tilting of law enforcement to favor “his people”, the slush fund which funneled huge sums from lawsuit settlements against banks to “community organizing” groups, and much, much more.
There is no evidence that Obama did not pack the top civil service positions of every agency, department, division and commission throughout the bureaucracy in a similar manner. It is these positions that determine who gets the hundreds of billions in grants, contracts, awards, leases and more every year.
And none of this considers what Andy Stern, a 70s New Left radical, did to pack the lower levels of the bureaucracy with Democrats for 20 years as head of the SEIU, the union to which millions of lower and mid-level civil service employees belong. The SEIU contributes tens of millions of dollars in cash and an immense amount of in-kind contributions every election cycle to Democrats only.
I for one do not foresee a peaceful reform as even a possibility, because the left is far too entrenched and never gives up power. Eventually they will piss off enough of all those deplorables clinging to their religion and their AR-15s and there will either be a civil war or we finally get to 1984.