The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump

by Andrew G. McCabe

The firing of Jim Comey gave new urgency to the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections—that interference was a fact, not a supposition—and into possible collusion by the Russians with the Trump campaign. Comey’s firing would lead directly to the appointment of a special counsel, Robert Mueller, to oversee that investigation.

The FBI is investigating possible Russian interference and then the director is fired, was Trump attempting to cover up something?

She felt, based on the information in our possession, that there was good reason to believe General Flynn had lied to the vice president, which created a national-security vulnerability.

The FBI believed Flynn may have lied about his contact with the Russians, which led to the investigation

They struck me as being mainly surprised by the encounter. Surprised at the difficulty of resolving their observations. As if they had just met a man who seemed completely normal, even when he glanced out the window and remarked, at noon, and then again an hour later, and a third time shortly after that, What a beautiful black sky.

Flynn didn't appear to be lying, but his behavior was strange, why did he comment three times on the sky?

The day after Flynn’s resignation, President Trump asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation. Since Election Day, Trump and his associates had, on an almost daily basis, made decisions and statements that raised serious questions about his desire to faithfully execute the duties of president of the United States.

Flynn resigned after being questioned where he seemed to be acting strangely. Trump asked the FBI to drop the investigation. Was he trying to hide something?

This was the moment when I realized that the president and his administration were not just inexperienced, not just unfamiliar with the established norms of democratic government. They wished to manipulate the functions of government mainly for their own interests.

The style of leadership seemed to be to use power to cover their tracks, manipulate the facts, bully people into their way of thinking. According to McCabe they planned to use government to serve their own interested rather than the country

On March 17, the FBI press office got a call from a reporter at Circa News, which is owned by the right-wing media powerhouse Sinclair Broadcast Group. The reporter said that sources had told her that I had announced in staff meetings that I hated the president. Said I was out to get Michael Flynn. Said that when Flynn got fired, I slapped high fives with everyone in the room. The reporter made my staff meeting sound like the towel-snapping scene in Top Gun.

The FBI press office would receive inquiries about fictional scenarios from right-wing news outlets; we would shoot them down; the news outlets were unable to go forward. Then the story would appear on some fringe, alt-right website, without a byline. Once it was picked up by the blogosphere and on social media, an outlet such as Sinclair would have cover to repeat it, which would enable Fox News to get on board, and then Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham would talk about it for weeks. This is a practiced, intentional strategy of news circulation. The stories may be fictional and the information false, but the consequences of this strategy are real.

I have not been looking to start a personal fight with the president. When somebody insults your wife, your instinctive reaction is to want to lash out in response. When you are the acting director, or deputy director, of the FBI, and the person doing the insulting is the chief executive of the United States, your options have guardrails. I read the president’s tweets, but I had an organization to run. A country to help protect. I had to remain independent, neutral, professional, positive, on target. I had to compartmentalize my emotions.

He went after me because the FBI opened the Russia case, which led to the appointment of a special counsel. He went after the FBI, and continues to do so, because its work has led to more than thirty indictments—with more likely to come—of individuals associated with Russian interference in the 2016 election. Those investigations raise questions about the legitimacy of his presence in the White House—questions that prompt fear.

Fear is why the president still has a map of his electoral college victory hanging outside the door to the Oval Office. Fear is why the president makes every person who goes into his office pass by a display meant to assert his right to sit behind the Resolute desk. Fear is why he asks people to pledge personal loyalty.

The president’s tweets resumed within a few days of my testimony. It was like being the target of a schoolyard bully who slaps you around, lets up for a while until you think maybe it’s over, then shows up again, saying, No, no—it’s not over. You didn’t think I’d forget Christmas, did you? The whole family was at home getting ready for the holidays when I was sent a screenshot of his latest tweet: “FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!!”

attorney general ordered my firing on March 16—twenty-six hours before my planned retirement.

He exhorts his supporters to think of themselves as true Americans, and to consider anyone who disagrees with them as being treasonous, like criminals—people who should be in jail, as he has explicitly urged.

In order for the FBI to continue to fulfill its mission, it needs to attract the best and brightest. We don’t need just former police officers, military officers, and attorneys. We also need computer scientists, we need biologists, we need statisticians. We need engineers. We need people who represent America’s full spectrum of backgrounds and intellectual gifts.