We are witnessing another tragic event in the saga of Donald Trump’s presidency. Andrew McCabe, former acting director of the FBI, admitted that the Department of Justice attempted to remove the duly-elected President of the United States from office with no evidence of wrongdoing. Yet where is the outcry? The moral outrage? The demand for justice? I didn’t hear it. Did you? That is unacceptable.
Instead of setting off a chorus of demands for an immediate investigation, Mr. McCabe became a media celebrity as he appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes to plug his new book, ironically titled, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump. The book alleges that, “Right now the greatest threat to the United States comes from within, as President Trump and his administration ignore the law… and undermine the U.S. Constitution.” McCabe was one of the top echelon in the FBI and DoJ that wanted desperately to prevent Donald Trump from sitting in
the Oval Office.
Segue to this week’s interview on 60 Minutes. McCabe said he ordered an obstruction of justice probe against the president after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Then he claimed that former Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein raised the issue of actually removing the president from office. Scott Pelley, who conducted the interview, describes McCabe’s confession:
"There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment. They were counting noses… They were speculating, 'This person would be with us. That person would not be.' They were counting noses in
that effort."
McCabe detailed his co-conspirators’ roles in the planned and implemented coup against Trump. Using a fake Russian dossier as a pretext, Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Trump with the intention of bringing down his presidency. The failure of the plot does not diminish its nefarious intent.
“Any Justice Department official who even mentioned the 25th amendment in the context of President Trump,” said retired Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, “has committed a grievous offense against the Constitution.” If McCabe’s comments are true, Dershowitz added, “it is clearly an attempt at a coup d’etat.” Reacting to the 60 Minutes revelations, President Trump blasted McCabe as a “disgrace” to the FBI and to the country. “Andrew McCabe is a national disgrace,” agreed Michael Goodwin in the New York Post. “He was part of the most corrupt and most partisan leadership team in FBI history and… has reminded us once again that there really is a powerful deep state, and that there has not been a full accounting of rampant FBI misconduct during the presidential campaign of 2016.”
Although the Mueller investigation has the taint of illegality—appointment of a special counsel must be based on the commission of a crime—no one in the government has attempted to stop it. Although federal law prohibits any attempt to advocate or encourage the overthrow of the government, there has been no attempt to prosecute McCabe and his fellow conspirators. The politicized DoJ has committed offenses that we would normally associate with third-world dictatorships. When the police arm of the government goes after political opponents, we are sliding downthe road to Stalinism. And still McCabe’s revelations, in point of fact, have been
received with little more than apathy.
“There is also still too much we don’t know,” Goodwin laments, “about the role top aides to then-President Barack Obama and higher-ups in the Justice Department played in spying on the Trump campaign and leaks of classified information for partisan purposes. In short, what is arguably the greatest scandal in the history of America remains mostly hidden from the public.”
We are wasting a chance to bring the scandal out into the open. So I repeat: An attempt was made to bring down the president. Where is the outcry? The moral outrage? The demand for justice? Something very profound has faded from the public forum and we are not better off for its disappearance. What we are missing is the desire to achieve a proactive resolution for scandals like this one. The newly- confirmed attorney general, William Barr, has an opportunity to take action. Will he do it, or will he emulate his predecessor by sweeping it under the rug? We are about to find out.
Ed Brodow is a political commentator, negotiation expert, and author of seven
books including his latest, Tyranny of the Minority: How the Left is Destroying
America.
