Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) responded to the shocking firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe today by calling for a Senate Judiciary hearing on the issue, seeking some desperate measure of transparency in the fetid slurry that is the Trump Administration.
With only two days left before FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was scheduled to retire with his full pension, Attorney General Jeff Sessions bowed to President Trump’s pressure and fired McCabe, leaving him without a retirement fund after over 21 years of government service.
“I think we owe it to the average American to have a hearing in the Judiciary Committee where Attorney General [Jeff] Sessions comes forward with whatever documentation he has about the firing, and give Mr. McCabe the chance to defend himself,” Graham, a member of the panel, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Sessions didn’t acknowledge the president’s involvement in the decision, citing only the report issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigated McCabe’s conduct during the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton and concluded that he lied about his role in the unauthorized disclosure of details of the ongoing investigation to the press.
McCabe, after unsuccessfully trying to convince Sessions and the Justice Department over the last few days that his firing so close to his already planned departure was unjustified, slammed the vindictive action as an attempt by the Trump administration “to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally.”
The American public is anxious to see if McCabe will challenge his dismissal in court and whether he will now be willing to reveal any other details of his FBI investigations publicly before Special Prosecutor Mueller lays out what his team has discovered.
Whatever the next steps, the vindictiveness of Trump and Sessions in stripping a dedicated civil servant of his long-earned pension is demonstrative of their desperation as the truth slowly worms its way into the light of day.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee called for an oversight hearing into the Trump Administration’s egregious attacks on the FBI, Justice Department, and the rule of law.
Should Trump use this opportunity to go after Special Counsel Robert Mueller and shut down the Russia investigation, Senator Graham has said it would be “the beginning of the end” of the Trump presidency.
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