‘This Much Meddling With the FBI for This Long Is Not Normal’
President Donald Trump has a lot of firsts under his belt. First president to preside over a shutdown of the government while his party controls both houses of Congress, first president to have an approval rating in their first year that’s 10 points lower than any president ever, first president whose campaign is under investigation for collusion, first president to lie more than five times a day, first president to have publicly bragged about sexually assaulting women, and so on.
But Trump was almost the first president to have to replace an FBI director twice in his first year in office.
On May 9 President Trump, having decided the Russia investigation was not a big deal, fired FBI Director Jim Comey. On August 2 the Bureau finally got a new FBI Director, Christopher Wray.
But according to a new report in Axios, Wray has almost quit after intense ongoing pressure from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Trump himself, to fire Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Trump was not subtle about his desire for McCabe to get sacked. In fact, he tweeted about it five times in six months:
Sessions, whose relationship with the president has been like a rollercoaster, clearly reacts to pressure from the President.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions — at the public urging of President Donald Trump — has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but Wray threatened to resign if McCabe was removed, according to three sources with direct knowledge,” Axios reports.
Axios continues: “Why it matters: Trump started his presidency by pressuring one FBI Director (before canning him), and then began pressuring another (this time wanting his deputy canned). This much meddling with the FBI for this long is not normal.”
Let’s do that again: “This much meddling with the FBI for this long is not normal.”
On Sunday, Axios also reported that “Sessions has adamantly urged FBI Director Christopher Wray to make a ‘fresh start’ with his core team, including replacing deputy director and Trump bête noire Andrew McCabe, according to a senior administration source.”
Image by United States Department of Justice via Wikimedia