Trump looks to McCabe as Mueller report on Russian interference looms

FBI Interim President Andrew McCabe was described as a liar, shame on the country and, on Wednesday, "J. Edgar Hoover of a Poor ", latest example of the efforts by the President and his supporters to undermine the credibility of a man. imminent report on Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

The attacks on McCabe, in particular, have a twofold, albeit contradictory, purpose for Trump: to discredit McCabe's extremely critical new book while using it to advance the case where he is the victim of a corrupt "deep state" preparing an administrative coup.

While McCabe is promoting his book "The Threat" in media interviews, Trump and his conservative allies have seized claims that McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had discussed Possible Options Putting aside McCabe's other allegations as lies, Trump sought to cite portions of the unflattering book as evidence to his political base that his presidency is besieged by unelected bureaucrats.

"Wow, Andrew McCabe, acting director of the FBI, has left so many lies now. He was fired for lying, and now his story is even more disturbing, "Trump wrote Monday on Twitter. "He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), seem to want to plan a very illegal act and get caught."

The escalating attacks and tweets targeting McCabe and other investigators paved the way for an even more aggressive attack on the part of Trump and his conservative allies once special advocate Robert S Mueller III will have completed his investigation into Russian electoral interference and the possible obstruction of justice by the president. Mueller could submit his findings to Attorney General William P. Barr as early as next week.

"As a basic game, it certainly makes sense to talk about the deep state," said Doug Heye, a former spokesman for House leaders and the Republican National Committee. "This fits perfectly with what the base already wants to believe: members of the administration are trying to thwart Trump at every instance."

McCabe is the last person responsible for attracting Trump's wrath as federal and congressional investigators investigate almost every aspect of his life. He is preparing to be reelected.

"I think that Andrew McCabe has been ridiculed for two days," Trump told reporters Wednesday. "I think it's a disaster and what he was trying to do was terrible and he was caught. I am very proud to say that we caught it. "

McCabe responded to MSNBC: "You think that someday you'll get used to that, and at some level you'll never do it. I hear the president lying about me since October 2016 and he's sort of finding new ways to do it. "

On Tuesday, President Kellyanne Conway's adviser alternated between calling McCabe a liar and saying that her assertions about the 25th Amendment talks amounted to a failed coup d'état attempt. She predicted that Trump would be re-elected for a second term, despite his legal problems.

"Andrew McCabe has attempted to overthrow a democratically elected president," said Conway at CNN's "first edition of CNN." "Hi everyone, Donald Trump, the President, it's been going on for a few years now, and get used to it because it's going to last another six years."

Although Trump has long criticized McCabe, who became acting director of the FBI after Trump dismissed James B. Comey in May 2017, his attacks intensified this week following the release of the book and the media tour. from McCabe. The president interspersed his attacks on McCabe with missives aimed at Mueller, attempting to link the two men who investigated his possible links with Russia.

"Mueller's investigation is totally confrontational, illegal and rigged!", Tweeted Trump Sunday. "Should never have been allowed to start."

In a "60-minute" interview broadcast on Sunday, McCabe revealed the crucial role he had played in advancing the investigation into the conspiracy of the Trump campaign with Russia in the 2016 elections. days after the dismissal of Comey, McCabe authorized the opening of an investigation on Trump himself. The purpose of the investigation was to determine whether the dismissal of Comey was an attempt to obstruct justice and whether Trump himself was being compromised by the Kremlin. McCabe promptly began the case that some members of the Justice Department initially feared revenge for the dismissal of Comey, said people close to the case who spoke under the guise of anonymity.

McCabe himself was finally fired from the FBI in March 2018, after the Inspector General of the Justice Ministry discovered that he had lied four times to investigators who were seeking a revelation in the media about business related to Hillary Clinton. McCabe alleged that his dismissal was politically motivated – a reprisal, he said, for opening the case against Trump. But the evidence presented by the Inspector General was so detrimental that she convinced the federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into the case with the help of a large corporation. jury. This case is ongoing.

Trump and his allies took advantage of the IG report to call McCabe a liar. But while McCabe was organizing a media campaign to promote his book, he had made more than a dozen successes on television and radio over the last few days, notably in "The View," as well as in "The Late Show with Stephen." Colbert "and" Morning Joe ". – the president and his allies have become attached in a sort of logical node.

While Trump and his supporters continued to describe McCabe as a fabulist, they accepted as a description of his conversations with Rosenstein, alleging that Rosenstein allegedly suggested wearing a thread to surreptitiously monitor the president and evoked the idea of ​​members Cabinet using the 25th Amendment. l & # 39; remove.

In describing McCabe as "J. Edgar Hoover of the poor" on Wednesday, Trump also evoked images of the former controversial FBI director who used the office's powers to spy on political activists.

Rosenstein said he was disputing McCabe's story, although his carefully worded statements do not specify what, in his view, actually happened. Trump announced Tuesday that he was considering appointing Jeffrey Rosen, a long-time litigation lawyer and assistant secretary of transport, to replace Rosenstein when he leaves him.

In his recent interviews, McCabe has presented a lot of information that could inflame the president. He told Savannah Guthrie on Tuesday on "Today" on the NBC channel that the FBI feared "that the president himself could pose a threat to US national security," then told Anderson CNN's Cooper that it was "possible" that the president be a Russian asset.But McCabe was also in a hurry to respond to criticism from the president.

McCabe's book, which describes Trump as a threat to democracy, is the latest insider account to pull the president's angry tweets. Trump has done free publicity by Comey, former White House co-workers Cliff Sims and Omarosa Manigault, as well as others.

By tweeting and talking about McCabe, Trump amplifies the book's message, Heye said.

"Nobody sells more anti-Trump books than Donald Trump and his Twitter feed," he said.