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Holder’s Advice for Jeff Sessions
According to an article from The Hill yesterday:
Former Attorney General Eric Holder says that Attorney General Jeff Sessions needs to “have the guts” to say no to President Trump.
Holder criticized Sessions at an event at Georgetown University on Monday, days after Sessions fired former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who had been a subject of frequent criticism from Trump.
Fascinating advice from the Attorney General who proudly described himself as President Obama’s “wing-man, so I’m there for my boy.“
And who played the key role in facilitating the pardon of Marc Rich for President Clinton, described in left-wing Slate, as “the most unjust presidential pardon in American history.”
Perhaps he was misquoted and actually said Sessions needs to “have the guts I didn’t have.”
Published in General
Wow. The hypocrisy of Leftists truly knows no bounds. As if at any time in his tenure as AG, Eric Holder displayed any “guts” on any thing.
Well done.
My advice for Eric Holder is not CoC compliant.
Now this is the former AG’s version of “guts.”
It’s good advice. Holder probably isn’t the best guy to give it, but the advice is solid. Then again, we don’t know when Holder said no to Obama. This was in the context of the McCabe firing. Idk as there’s anything comparable during the Obama administration.
Holder also said this on Twitter:
That seem accurate to me.
It seems like a pretty safe bet for this strategy: whatever Holder advises, do the opposite.
He certainly doesn’t want to of any help, and he definitely has things to hide.
A comment on the “cruel” thing.
Give. Me. A. Break.
McCabe wants to retire at 50. Now he has to wait until he’s, what 57? Then he gets his pension?
No one in government — no one who isn’t battling fires or getting shot at — should get to retire at 50. Let the man go get a job for a few years, before he spends the last quarter century of his life kicking back at the public trough.
Cruel. Sheesh.
It was obviously a move out of spite. It’s very Trumpian. Kind of like how he fired Comey with no notice and then didn’t want him to be able to fly back from California on an fbi plane.
And yeah, it is cruel to screw with somebody’s pension at the last minute like that.
IF in fact the guy lied under oath, then I think it’s wonderful that he got sacked before he gets to enjoy his preposterous pension. Other people go to jail for that; he just has to go get a job like normal people. Sorry, I don’t see anything awful here, just a barely-appropriate [that is, barely adequate] slap on the wrist for a spoiled and probably corrupt bureaucrat.
Holder’s tweet is internally inconsistent. There is no way to judge the “cruelty” of the firing without, as he appears to claim, knowing the substance. We do know that the firing was recommended by a DOJ IG appointed by Obama. So is there some point at which McCabe’s apparently nefarious conduct can be excused in the name of some more bucks? I suppose that we also can find some instances where well-meaning embezzlers should be allowed to keep some of their “profits” as a concession to their previously loyal careers.
It isn’t obvious.
It could very well have been process. I seem to recall process is everything.
It also may have been done before retirement to send a message to others. Which I think a good thing.
Except the wheels don’t turn that quickly in proceedings like this.
You think the normal process resulted in this guy getting fired less than 24 hours before he was set to retire?
Since I think the guy should have been fired, I guess I find it pointless to speculate on ulterior motives for the firing.
And, based on what I’ve read, I do think the guy should have been fired.
So I continue to applaud the decision.
If so, then the career agents in the FBI Office of Professional Integrity and the IG all caved to Trump. Seems unlikely.
That’s the rub. We don’t have all the details b
McCabe was given notice 3 days before the public announcement. Just how fast did it go?
One of the great untold stories of the “scandal free” Obama administration is that this same Obama-appointed DOJ IG, frustrated with the administration’s obstruction, got 2/3 of the Inspector Generals in the federal government to sign a letter sent to Congress in 2014 objecting to Obama’s refusal to cooperate with IG investigations and to the roadblocks placed in their way by the administration. It got some brief one-day coverage in places like the WaPo and was then dropped. No follow up stories. Nothing. Can you imagine if it had been the Bush or Trump administrations?
+1
Agreed.
However, if the ulterior motives for conducting the firing are on the table, let’s put the ulterior motives of those attacking the firing out there as well. And I’d speculate that they go beyond just warm and fuzzies for McCabe and his financial future.
All this ‘back and forth’ between Ricochetti should be done in the context of this career FBI Agent’s explanatory column in today’s WSJ.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-went-wrong-at-the-fbi-1521497432?mod=itp&mod=djemITP_h
I will try to get around the Ricochet word limit by stringing a couple of comments together. (Wish me luck: I haven’t been successful in the past with this work-around)
What Went Wrong at the FBI
After 9/11, the bureau lost its law-enforcement ethos as it tried to become more of an intelligence agency.
Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Washington, D.C. PHOTO: T.J. KIRKPATRICK/BLOOMBERG NEWS
By
Thomas J. Baker
March 19, 2018 6:10 p.m. ET
949 COMMENTS
Americans have grown increasingly skeptical since 2016 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an institution they once regarded as the world’s greatest law-enforcement agency. I spent 33 years in a variety of positions with the FBI, and I am troubled by this loss of faith. Many lapses have come to light, and each has been thoroughly covered. But why did they happen? The answer is a cultural change that occurred in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
For reasons that seemed justified at the time, the bureau set out to become an “intelligence driven” organization. That had unintended consequences. The FBI’s culture had been rooted in law enforcement. A law-enforcement agency deals in facts, to which agents may have to swear in court. That is why “lack of candor” has always been a firing offense. An intelligence agency deals in estimates and best guesses. Guesses are not allowed in court. Intelligence agencies often bend a rule, or shade the truth, to please their political masters. In the FBI, as a result, there now is politicization, polarization, and no sense of the bright line that separates the legal from the extralegal.
Part of making the FBI more like an intelligence agency was the centralization of case management at headquarters in Washington, rather than the field offices around the country. With this came the placing of operational decisions in the hands of more “politically sensitive” individuals at headquarters.
The 9/11 investigations and related matters were the first to be moved from the field to headquarters. But the trend culminated with the investigations into Hillary Clinton’s emails and Russian election interference—both run from headquarters as well. Levels of review—and independent judgment—were eliminated. Thus, we learn that Peter Strzok —who held the relatively high rank of deputy assistant director of counterintelligence—was himself conducting interviews in both politically sensitive investigations.
[To be continued]
Mr. Baker is a retired FBI special agent and legal attaché.
Appeared in the March 20, 2018, print edition as ‘What Went Wrong At the FBI.’
The 9/11 investigations and related matters were the first to be moved from the field to headquarters. But the trend culminated with the investigations into Hillary Clinton’s emails and Russian election interference—both run from headquarters as well. Levels of review—and independent judgment—were eliminated. Thus, we learn that Peter Strzok —who held the relatively high rank of deputy assistant director of counterintelligence—was himself conducting interviews in both politically sensitive investigations.
After 9/11 there was much talk of the negative consequences of a “wall” between criminal and intelligence investigations. There was always—it was part of our culture—a discussion about how to proceed at the outset of a counterintelligence or terrorism investigation. To seek a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with its lower standard of probable cause, when one would ultimately pursue a prosecution was considered an abuse of FISA. It is still an abuse. To shade the truth in a FISA application—as occurred with the “ Steele Dossier”—is characteristic behavior of an intelligence agency, not a “swear to tell the truth” law-enforcement organization.
FISA was never intended as a tool to pursue Americans. It was to be used to gather intelligence about agents of a foreign power operating in the U.S. The aim of this monitoring was to produce intelligence for our national decision makers. It was not intended to be used in criminal prosecutions. If an American is suspected of operating as an agent of a foreign power, that individual should be pursued under the Espionage Act, a criminal statute. The fruits of that monitoring could then be used in court for a prosecution. The use of FISA to target a U.S. citizen is the most egregious abuse uncovered so far.
As former FBI Director William Webster repeatedly told us agents: “We must do the job the American people expect of us, in the way that the Constitution demands of us.” All actions and decisions must once again be viewed though that prism. The Justice Department inspector general and others are now looking at specific alleged abuses.
Perhaps Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s firing is a start. Mr. McCabe’s statement, in response to his firing, that “the big picture is a tale of what can happen when law enforcement is politicized” is, ironically, true.
What is needed is much more—a renewal of the FBI’s culture. When the smoke clears from the current controversies, Director Christopher Wray must help the bureau turn the page on this intelligence chapter and get the bureau back to the law-enforcement culture of fact-finding and truth-telling that once made us all so proud.
Author is a retired FBI special agent & legal attaché
3/20/18 print WSJ ‘What Went Wrong At the FBI.’
No, no , no Fred. Spite isn’t the word. Contempt. Poor Mc Cabe lost his pension! He should have to pay back taxpayers for trying to rig their election and install Criminal Hillary.
Fred – you have your spite definition on the wrong person unless you’ve been missing all the news on McCabe’s activities as well as Lisa Page, The “Plan B in case Trump won, Strzok, Comey who now thinks his material is book and movie worthy, the FISA judge who recused himself a week after they said Flynn did nothing wrong, then Mueller forced a confession – his son was even threatened, and all of the cronies that conspired together to undermine Trump – cruel? Spiteful? I hope they all go to jail.
For those of you concerned about Mr. McCabe’s financial future, you might want to read this (he seems unlikely to go hungry, especially if he remains married to his current wife):
https://finapp.co.in/andrew-mccabe-net-worth/#andrew_mccabe_net_worth_and_income_details
You think the normal firing process should have been postponed for 24 hours so that the guy could retire without being fired?
There’s a lot to not like about Sessions. Civil Asset Forfeiture for one. However, he has never been a yes man to Trump. Holder’s criticism is off the mark; Sessions fired the jerk because Sessions agreed with firing the jerk, not because he was told to. Sessions may be right or wrong, but he is right or wrong on his own terms.
No it’s not. There was a hard deadline.
The OIG and the internal FBI OPR recommended termination. Nothing to do with Trump. This was years in the making.
Should no one in the government ever suffer consequences for ‘lack of candor’ when Martha Stewart and Michael Flynn are persecuted for exactly that?
I could understand Holder trying to relive his glory days through Sessions, if Holder had actually had glory days.