Merry Christmas, everybody! Unless you’re FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Then it’s a merry fuck you from the president of the United States.
Instead of spending time with his family this Christmas Eve day, the president of the United States seems to prefer bullying people on Twitter. His target this holiday season is a high–ranking FBI official on the verge of retirement who also happens to be a key witness to Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice.
Like all things Trumpian, the president takes his lead from lies promulgated by the White House’s propaganda arm, Fox News.
Trump’s Twitter attacks against McCabe started on Saturday with a false claim about McCabe’s wife having received campaign funding from Hillary Clinton. Trump picked up that lie from Fox News and continued repeating it on Sunday.
“How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?” the president tweeted.
After The Washington Post reported that McCabe, 49, plans to retire in a few months when he is fully eligible for pension benefits, Trump tweeted, “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!”
Trump clearly was still watching Fox News at this point, because his next tweet also mentioned the network while attacking the FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, whom we described yesterday in a separate post.
Trump’s next two tweets diverged off–topic in order for the president to take credit for the stock market, denounce “Fake News,” and try somehow to spin the losses of two Republicans he had endorsed—Luther Strange and Roy Moore—into Trumpian “wins.”
But the next tweet was back on track, again citing Fox News, accusing McCabe’s wife of receiving campaign contributions from Clinton, and alleging that McCabe himself used an official email account to promote the campaign.
“FBI’s Andrew McCabe, ‘in addition to his wife getting all of this money from M (Clinton Puppet), he was using, allegedly, his FBI Official Email Account to promote her campaign. You obviously cannot do this. These were the people who were investigating Hillary Clinton.’
So, here we have Trump a) spreading a lie and b) lecturing a top FBI official about what people can and can’t do legally. Oh, and also c) possible witness tampering.
Trump’s holiday tweet tirade wasn’t over yet, though, because he then retweeted a meme with a squashed and bloody CNN logo on the bottom of his shoe, with more grumbles about “Fake News.”
If you’re wondering what all that business about McCabe’s wife is about, Business Insider has a good explanation:
McCabe’s wife, Dr. Jill McCabe, mounted an unsuccessful run for a Virginia state Senate seat in 2015. Her campaign received $675,000 in donations from the Virginia Democratic Party and from Common Good VA, the super PAC run by Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton supporter. None of the donations came from Clinton or her family.
McCabe was also not in charge at the time of the bureau’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct government business. He took on an “oversight role” in the investigation in February 2016 — long after his wife lost her election bid. Comey, who was FBI director at the time, was tasked with making the final decisions in the Clinton email probe.
Merry Christmas, everybody! But not you, McCabe. No gargantuan presidential Christmas card for you! Loser.