Soulless

Human Resources:  Former Acting FBI Head Andrew McCabe who was fired by the Trump administration just hours before he would have qualified for his pension is now suing the FBI and the Justice Department for wrongful dismissal. McCabe who authorized the investigation into Trump, his ties to Russia and his obstruction of justice, alleges he was illegally demoted and fired as part of a plot by Trump to remove those who were not politically loyal to him. The suit singles out former Attorney General Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who it claims “knowingly acted in furtherance of Trump’s plan and scheme, with knowledge that they were implementing Trump’s unconstitutional motivations for removing Plaintiff from the civil service.”  Given that virtually all of the senior members of the FBI team responsible for the Russia investigation have been removed, McCabe’s claims are not farfetched, it’s not clear that he will has any chance of winning but the lawsuit could get very interesting especially if certain people named Trump are called in to testify. Peter Strzok, the “sexting” FBI agent who was also forced out of the FBI filed his own wrongful dismissal suit earlier this week.  Though she isn’t suing, Sue Gordon, the highly respected Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence who has served in the CIA and in other intelligence positions for more than thirty years submitted her resignation to Trump yesterday.  She plans to depart on August 15, the same day that her boss Dan Coats, the current Director of National Intelligence, will be leaving his post.  She delivered a respectful handwritten note to Trump that acknowledged that she’s being pushed out by saying that she was resigning “out of respect and patriotism, not preference.” By law Gordon was supposed to be elevated to the acting Director of National Intelligence position while Trump seeks a replacement for Coats however since Trump views her as a part of the deep state, someone actually bold enough to speak truth to power, he had made it clear that he didn’t want her moving into that role, even temporarily, because among other things he doesn’t want to hear that North Korea continues to amass nukes or that Russia is continuing to engage in election interference. Gordon’s forced departure is quite concerning to those who actually care more about national security than pleasing Trump.  Senator Burr, the Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who helped put the kibosh on the nomination of Trump’s first choice to replace Coats, the woefully underqualified Trump toady, Congressman Ratcliffe, called her departure a significant loss.  House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff went further, calling her departure a “devastating loss.” For the time being Trump has appointed Joseph Maguire, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, as the acting director. Maguire is credible but has far less relevant experience.  Tucker Carlson probably still has his job at Fox but he’s gone fishing, really gone fishing.  Though he claims that his vacation had been previously planned, he may have been asked to get lost for a while in response to a few too many nightly diatribes in which he asserted that the whole white supremacy thing is a hoax, particularly offensive in light of the El Paso murder spree committed by an assailant with stated views about all those brown “replacement” people, views that closely mirror Trump’s campaign rally speeches.  Planned or not, Fox does have a tendency to push its commentators to take vacations when their punditry goes too far off their very broad rails; last year Laura Ingraham was send on a temporary hiatus after mocking a Parkland survivor and the year before Sean Hannity was forced into a penalty vacation for propagating the false Seth Rich conspiracy theory, the one where he knowingly pushed the phony narrative that the young DNC worker had been killed by a Hillary hired assassin, a claim that tortured his already distraught parents.  Sadly, with the exception of Bill O’Reilly, Fox’s vacationers tend to return.  Though he has no plans to return to Washington during August, Senate Majority Leader Moscow/NRA/Mitch signaled that he might be open to some kind of gun control legislation by telling a Kentucky radio host that a measure expanding background checks to all gun purchasers would be “front and center” when the Senate comes back into session next month.  He went on to say that “There is a lot of support for that,” he also said that the discussion would also encompass so-called red flag legislation that would make it easier to seize firearms from people deemed dangerous. Still this is Mitch McConnell, he’s a wizard of manipulation, the words “front and center” are far from a commitment so he might just be lifting hopes for progress that he will later quash.  In any case he cites concerns that Democrats would use an August session for grandstanding as one of the reasons that he has no plans to cancel his summer vacation.  In other news, yesterday, a man with a loaded rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition walked into a Walmart in Missouri, “alarming” shoppers before he was arrested.

The Road to Impeachment:  Yesterday House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler confirmed that the Judiciary Committee is conducting an impeachment inquiry adding that a decision will be made by the end of the year on whether to refer articles of impeachment to the House floor.  His statement is consistent with the contents of a lawsuit that the Judiciary Committee filed on Wednesday in an attempt to force former White House counsel Donald McGahn to testify before Congress. That lawsuit asks a federal judge to strike down the Trump administration’s claim that top presidential aides are “absolutely immune” from its subpoenas. The court filing identifies McGahn as “the most important witness, other than Trump, to the key events” at the center of the investigation into obstruction of justice going on to say that “The Judiciary Committee is now determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment against the president based on the obstructive conduct described by the special counsel but it cannot fulfill this most solemn constitutional responsibility without hearing testimony from a crucial witness to these events.” Impeachment is a process and the process is underway.  

Mississippi Burning:  Around 300 of the 680 workers rounded up by the INS at several Mississippi manufacturing plants have been released, some with ankle bracelets to insure that they show up for future immigration hearings.  At least one of the workers hauled in was actually an American citizen, but no matter, he was tasered when he tried to point that out to the INS agents.  As of now no one  from any of the companies that hired the workers has been arrested even though it’s clear that they knew that their workers were undocumented and may well have turned them in in exchange for leniency for illegally hiring them in the first place.  It’s also not clear why anyone at the Department of Homeland Security thought it was okay to proceed with the “pre-planned” raids just days after the targeted murder of Hispanic Americans in El Paso.  Yesterday a truly heart wrenching video of eleven year old Magdalena Gomez sobbing while begging for the release of her parents went viral.  In it she is shaking convulsively while calling out Mr. Trump “my dad is not a criminal.”  Makes you wonder if real estate investor, Equinox/SoulCycle owner Stephen Ross, who reportedly is upset about all the attention that he’s been getting but still plans to host his Hamptons fundraiser for Trump today anyway, has a soul. I think we know the answer to that.