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Attorney General Jeff Sessions Fires Andrew McCabe
From the Washington Post:
Published in PoliticsAttorney General Jeff Sessions late Friday night fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a little more than 24 hours before McCabe was set to retire.
Sessions announced the decision in a statement just before 10 p.m., noting that both the Justice Department Inspector General and the FBI office that handles discipline had found “that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”
Good call — the firing, I mean.
I think we all grow weary of these bullet-proof high-level bureaucrats with the fat pensions who can get away with things that would get a soldier dishonorably discharged or a private-sector employee fired, but who instead simply get moved to another department where they can quietly wait out their sinecures.
When the FBI concludes that one of its own lied under oath to cover up his own misdeeds, I think it’s appropriate that he get something other than a frowny-face.
If the shoe fits.
Okay, let’s try to solve Zeno’s paradox.
The report recommending that McCabe be fired came out 3 days ago. Would it have been better if Sessions fired him then?
Christopher Wray knew what the report was going to say two months ago; it’s obvious in retrospect that the reason he had McCabe step down is because of what was in this report. Should Sessions have fired him then?
You don’t think the IG report is fake, do you? I mean, the only way I can see the “the man is entitled to his pension” argument making sense is if you think he didn’t do anything described in the report. Otherwise, this argument that he’s entitled to his pension before he’s entitled to his pension is silly and based on nothing.
Comey next ….
In a perp walk ….
They do that because it enables agents to make their own characterization of what they were told by witnesses. Recording these sessions would allow courts and juries to hear the actual words used by the witness and potentially undermine agency supported prosecutions.
I did that once (or at least participated in it). It took us a year.
There is always the possibility — no, probability — that it is fake news, but there have been a couple reports that McCabe said that if he were fired, he would take a lot of people down with him. I’m trying not to get my hopes up.
As a side-note, has anyone else noticed what whining punks these people are when they no longer have the title and the bureaucracy to protect them?
It’s apparently a crime to tell a lie to an FBI investigator. And the proof of this crime is Agent Jones stating in court that Mr. Smith told said lie and said lie is documented in an official memo?
Sure sounds exactly like what free people in a free society would accept.
Jeez
I think it’s the loss of official immunity they fear.
After watching the whole sordid swamp story last night on Fox, where McCabe is just one piece of an ugly puzzle, his pension sounds like the least of his problems.
And they have the audacity to do it in a book, then go on a book tour…..
Yes. The period after Robespierre was executed was a period of chaos, too. At least it was better than The Terror. Trump was the only candidate with the money and guts (plus a bit of craziness) to take on the Deep State. We see how they went nuts trying to protect their perks and pensions.
The GOP Congress has been pretty useless.
I don’t have time to read the referenced earlier rules for federal Pensions, but I think he likely is entitled to his pension; what he may be loosing is the option for so called “early retirement.”
I am still covered by a pension plan from my employer. It was a part of the contract that I signed at the onset of the employment. In general, the amount of my monthly pension is determined by a somewhat complicated formula which is spelled out in the contract. In my case, the formula takes into account years of service, employee’s age, and 10 quarters of highest income. The formula has built in several gates that determine how the formula is used. For example, one has to work full time for the company for five years before being eligible for a pension. Also, the formula changes significantly for employees that that reach the age of 55. Essentially, retiring a day shy of the 55th birthday would result in a pension that over the expected life expectancy of the retiring employee could be hundreds of thousands of dollars less than had he elected to retire at 55. Additionally, the formula reduces the pension benefit by a fraction which depended how far the employee is from 62 – the expected retirement age with full benefits.
Seems to me that McCabe will still get his pension, but it will not be as high had he retired at 50 – I guess the government is more generous than my company that has a threshold of 55 for early retirement.
I work at the pleasure of my employer; they can fire me any time. I will be entitled, however, by the provisions of my contract, to receive a pension based on the formula appropriate to my age and years of service at the time of retirement/separation from service/firing.
Oh! And there is another interesting provision. If one retires from my company at 55 or older, one is eligible for a retiree health insurance at 50% of the employer’s cost (as an employee I pay ~20% of that cost). However, one retiring before 55 can still get an insurance from my employer, but it will cost him 105% of the employer’s cost until he reaches 55. If federal pensions have similar provisions, depending on the threshold, he may be also paying a hack more for his insurance.
Max gets it.
http://ricochet.com/503112/crooked-fbi-agent-fired/
I don’t understand how they fired this guy so quickly and, seemingly, without prior notice. Usually, you have to give a 30 day warning and an opportunity to reply. I guess it’s possible that they did give him notice that we don’t know about or that they’re using the so-called crime provision to avoid giving notice, but this is still unusually swift action. Unless there’s something special about the Deputy Director job that allows summary firing of the incumbent.
I don’t know for sure, but my sense of it is that the people near the top, in appointed positions, are employed at-will, and can be fired without cause or preamble. If that isn’t how it is, it’s how it should be. But I suspect that’s how it is.
You must have missed 8 years of the Barry Presidency ™.
Near as I can tell, the deputy director’s is a Senior Executive position rather than an at-will position like the director’s. But I never worked for the FBI and have been away from this stuff for years.
Edit: It looks like the FBI has its own adverse action system, with different time limits than those that apply to other federal employees.
You are probably right. The more I read, the more it looks like the President’s at-will authority is restricted to the Director alone. Perhaps they consider his reassignment sufficient warning. In any event, I’m a little sickened that anyone who isn’t actually being shot at by enemy soldiers gets to retire at 50 with a big government pension — and doubly so that this guy is one of them.
The middle class people who vote for Trump do not agree. The people in England who voted to pull the UK out of the EU would also not agree. BTW check out Tillerson’s involvement with the blood testing company, Theranos, that is now in the toilet.
And read up on what is being said about his very short tenure as Secr of State:
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/3/13/16029526/rex-tillerson-fired-state-department
I gave money to Evan McMullin, Gary Johnson and Hillary Clinton in 2016, all in an effort to defeat Trump. I have no regrets for doing so.
The reason was simple in a quote that I saw at the time: “Conservatism survives and thrives if it spends 4 years in opposition to Hillary Clinton; conservatism dies if it spends 4 years in compliance with Donald Trump.” So far, Trump is doing an excellent job in destroying conservatism, with his complete lack of control which is driving women, suburban and young voters into the Democrat’s arms. See PA-18 and the Alabama Senate race.
There is an alternative, to be strong and inclusive. See Reagan, Ronald. See also, Eisenhower, Dwight David. See also Lincoln, Abraham.
GFR?
He may be covered by the law enforecment pension sweetener, which covers such folk as ATF, DEA, and customs and border patrol agents and allows earlier-than-normal retirement.
Fred is not alone. Count me in with him.
Also, I think that the personal attack in the last sentence violates the CoC. Please withdraw that sentence or apologize for it.
Get … Real.
What the F stands for is an excercise left for the reader who likes to ponder non-CoC-compliant words.
I would be very interested to see how many of my fellow Ricochetti address this statement by McCabe who has been silent so far.
Very much in agreement with you Django.
@fredcole
And the problem with Fred Cole’s remark is that McCabe didn’t commit the acts he committed two days before his pension. Rather he committed those acts in 2016 and 2017. And he committed those acts because his mind was on other things during the extensive parts of an FBI agent’s training that emphasizes that first and foremost a member of the FBI must be honest.
McCabe did not mind being part of a politicized team that went after Trump to establish that Trump has been guilty of collusion with the Russians. This was done on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also participated as he thought that Hillary would win and all this malfeasance would be covered up.
Funny how all the man power that went in to investigating Trump helped to run out the clock on HRC’s involvement in The Uranioum One deal, by which HRC helped her business buddy Frank Giustra divert 20% of our uranium and much of the world’s uranium over to Russia. She was the one that should have been investigated. And now more than five years have gone by and she is home scot free.
He couldn’t be fired sooner than yesterday because the investigation conducted by the Office of Professional responsibility had not been concluded until then. If McCabe had been fired sooner, then he could have wailed that the investigation did not dot all its “i”‘s or cross all its tees. Instead things panned out as they did and Boo Hoo Hoo for this scum bag.
Whoever said this was probably a Democrat.
Crook complains that he’s innocent. That’s not unusual. What else is there to say?
But I thought women voted for Trump. You know, because their white husbands told them to.