Susan Wright on the Right
There have been a lot of tales centered around the frustration within the White House, as aides and administration officials attempt to keep the president focused and informed.
The big problem seems to be he only believes what he sees on Fox News or hears from outside sources that spend more time stroking his ego than doing research.
Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe went ahead and did what pretty much every other former official in the age of Trump has done and wrote a book, discussing his short time serving under the Donald Trump administration.
As can, or should be imagined, it does not paint a flattering image of the commander-in-chief.
Oddly enough, most of them don’t.
I suppose the argument could be made that McCabe is simply expressing his sour grapes, taking a swipe at the president who fired him two days before he could have retired and collected full benefits, after over 20 years of service.
It was a nasty move, and typical, cold-blooded Trump.
Still, McCabe had some issues. He was fired, according to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for “lacking candor under oath.”
Specifically, he allegedly lied under oath about authorizing FBI agents to speak to The Wall Street Journal.
With all that being said, his new book, “The Threat,” bears the ring of truth, given what we already know about President Trump from multiple sources and observable incidents through his short presidency.
Some of the accounts from McCabe’s book should shake Americans to their core, but so much has already gone down of the same urgency, with the response of the GOP and the rest of Trump’s cult being to rally around him.
One of those chilling instances, according to McCabe, happened back in July 2017, as Trump disputed an Oval Office briefing regarding North Korea, and their first reported test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
According to Trump, he had it on better authority than his own intelligence community that it didn’t happen.
McCabe wrote that Trump called the launch of the long-range missile a “hoax,” telling officials he knew North Korea did not have the ability to launch that type of missile “because Vladimir Putin had told him so.”
Imagine that. Another situation where Donald Trump yields to the authority of our greatest geopolitical foe in matters of national security, as opposed to listening to our own intelligence community.
I have to point out that this was in the “Little Rocket Man” time frame, and Trump and Kim had not yet “fallen in love.”
That was back in 2017. It is now 2019 and he’s shown very little change in that attitude.
Of course, the White House has blown off the reports coming out from McCabe’s book.
Asked for comment, the White House pointed to a statement earlier Thursday from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders that said McCabe “has no credibility and is an embarrassment to the men and women of the FBI and our great country.”
Yeah, McCabe isn’t the one embarrassing us.
Or putting us at risk.
In McCabe’s book he also discusses opening an obstruction of justice probe into Trump’s actions, after he fired former FBI Director James Comey.
Of course, Trump had to take his shots at McCabe, as well.
Trump ripped McCabe on Thursday morning, tweeting that the former FBI official “pretends to be a ‘poor little Angel’ when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax.”
The “hoax” has uprooted dozens of Russians, uncovered multiple links between Trump associates and campaign aides to Russia, and implicated at least six of those associates in illegal activities.
All that, and special counsel Robert Mueller has yet to issue a final report, which could indicate there’s more work to do and more indictments coming.
So while we wait on that work to come down, I’m going to go ahead and call it: This will not be the last tell-all about the Donald Trump presidency, and we’ve only scratched the surface of just how bad it is.
Bank on it.
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