March 14, 2018

Donald Trump Is Finally Close to Firing One of His Imaginary Enemies

Remember this from the 2016 Republican Convention? Good times.Bill Clark/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

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As part of his bizarre obsession with the 2016 election, Donald Trump has insisted for a long time that deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe conspired against him during the campaign. Why? Pay close attention:

  • McCabe’s wife is a Democrat.
  • She ran for office in Virginia a few years ago.
  • Like all Democrats, she got help from then-governor Terry McAuliffe.
  • McAuliffe is famously one of Hillary Clinton’s good buddies.
  • Therefore McCabe was in league with Hillary to defeat Trump. This is why Hillary was never charged in the email case even though we all know she was totally guilty and should have spent the rest of her life in prison.

Trump has tweeted more than once that McCabe should be fired, and now he’s close to getting his wish:

Mr. McCabe is ensnared in an internal review that includes an examination of his decision in 2016 to allow F.B.I. officials to speak with reporters about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. The Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that Mr. McCabe was not forthcoming during the review, according to the people briefed on the matter. That yet-to-be-released report triggered an F.B.I. disciplinary process that recommended his termination — leaving Mr. Sessions to either accept or reverse that decision.

For what it’s worth, note that McCabe was arguing in favor of investigating the Clinton Foundation, which would hurt Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump. Whatever. So what is it that McCabe supposedly did wrong?

The details of why the inspector general viewed Mr. McCabe as not forthcoming are not clear.

Anyway, McCabe is scheduled to retire on Sunday, but if he gets fired on Friday instead it will reduce his retirement benefits. Trump actually tweeted a few months ago that he thinks it would be outrageous if McCabe got his full benefits:

Our government is being run like a mafia family. A very, very petty mafia family.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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