Day 775

Day 775 Wednesday February 20, 1019

621 Days to the 2020 election and 699 Days to Inauguration Day

Yesterday I went to Barnes and Noble. It opened at nine. I got there at half past. I bought Andrew McCabe’s book “The Threat.” I sat in the B&N cafe and read. I sat in the shopping center food court and read. I went back to the B&N cafe and read. I stopped at 6:40 pm to go to my nephew’s indoor soccer game. I had six pages left by that point. I finished it when I got home that night. 

I wasn’t planning to sit and read all day, but I felt compelled to do so. After reading the first part of the book where McCabe describes his work on bringing down Russian mobsters in the U.S. I was struck by something he said and a conclusion I came to. First off he said in Russian there is no difference between organized crime and the government. They are one in the same. As he described their tactics and strategies and as he described how the RICO law works to help the FBI bring down not just a person for a single crime but an entire corrupt organization I was struck by the thought that Donald Trump is mobbed up. By that I mean he is a willing and knowledgeable person involved in criminal behavior and that he is working with others to carry out these plans and schemes, and that he is part of a circle or circles of various nefarious organizations to carry out these schemes.

Some of these are Russian. Many I suspect are other, but certainly it is Russian. If you are doing anything with the Russian government you are working with and on the behalf of criminals. Period. Full stop.

Andrew McCabe is a life long FBI career government worker. He is honest. He is forthright. He is everything you would expect in an FBI agent. Donald Trump is a scumbag.

Paragraph 1:

Where to begin? There are so many things I want to say in the first paragraph. Let me start here. McCabe was working at LX-1, Liberty Crossing, an intelligence facility in McLean, Virginia. He was working with Art Cummings. Art’s family was in Richmond. Rather than disturb them Art lived on a house boat in a DC marina. No heat, no air conditioning. Every night on the way home Art bought a tuna fish sandwich. That was dinner. Art had summoned McCabe. Andrew was in Denver when he got the summons. When he got to Art’s office he was told it was “that HIG thing,” which McCabe learned meant the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.

They went to the director’s office, Bob Mueller. Wanda Siford was Mueller’s secretary, and had served every director of the FBI for most of her adult life.  She saw them coming, picked up the phne, hung up and swept her hand to the left. They were to proceed.

As they entered Mueller’s office, he was asked about his current case. He was asked what his next plan was. McCabe said to continue doing what he was doing. Mueller said Uh-huh, okay. He said something had come up. President Obama had asked the FBI to take responsibility for building and running a new group called HIG. It was to revamp how high value terrorist suspects were interrogated. There had been a study and a recommendation as a result the FBI had been asked to take charge. Mueller went on – we’re going to do it. And you are going to do it. You’re going to build the team.

McCabe said he didn’t know much about all this. You can read about it. If there’s anything you need let me know. Is there anything else you would like to tell me? Yes sir, If I had my preference I’d like to work counter terrorism. Mueller looked at McCabe and said, You know what I’d like to do? 

No sir.

I like to try homicide cases. And look what Im doing.

Paragraph 1:

Do you know what the purpose of the FBI is?

McCabe does and he returns to it again and again in the book.

To protect the American people and the Constitution.

That’s it. Period.

Whoever wrote that is a genius.

If an organization has a clear mission statement everyone knows what to do; what part they play.

In the old AT&T it was “Universal Service for All.” If you wanted a phone and you were in the middle of nowhere you got a phone. It didn’t matter if the company had to string wire for twenty miles to collect that $6.35 a month; you got a phone. 

Cray Research via it’s founder Seymour Cray was “to build the biggest and fastest computers in the world.” Concomitant to that was “Do it.” (It’s a famous story in the legends of Mr. Cray when the company was going through an MBO (Management by Objectives) phase and some underling kept pestering Seymour for his MBOs. finally he got two three-ring binders back. One had the objective, the other had the plan. Two sheets of paper. The objective and the plan. Any questions?

McCabe recounted how no matter how difficult or impossible the task it was clear what the FBI did. You want every piece of hay in a haystack inspected twice and each piece of hay put back exactly in its same place? No problem. You want a report by 4 o’clock? No problem. Hard is what we do.

He recounted how when he took charge of the Boston Marathon bombing. They were trying to grab all the video and photographic evidence they could. There was a bank across the street from where one of the two pressure cooker bombs went off. They wanted to get that video footage. A woman assigned to do that said the bank was closed and they’d reopen on Monday. McCabe explained to her on a group phone call that they needed that footage now. This was terrorism and you worked it 24/7/365. You call up that branch manager and you get it. If it’s four in the morning you call him. If you need his name and number I’ll get it for you. If you need five hundred agents they will be on your doorstep tomorrow morning. Any questions?

Right after that call, which Mueller had been on, McCabe apologized to him (because he realized he shouldn’t dress down an employee in front of others.) Mueller held up his hand and said it needed to be done.

If you think McCabe is tough; Mueller is tougher. Mueller wears a coat, tie, and white shirt to work everyday. His idea of being informal is taking off his jacket. At the end of a day, when on a trip, he goes to his hotel room and closes the door. No fraternizing with the troops. Reminds me of the British navy. 

One thing you don’t want to see is Mueller lean forward. Because if you do he’s going to ask a question. And you don’t want the question. “Who wrote this crap?”

Any questions?

Last Paragraph:

At the end of the book McCabe talks about duty. It’s almost Kennedyesque, but with that hard edged FBI manner. It reminded me of Comey’s testimony about the shiny beacon on the hill. (A reference to Reagan, of course.)

These are men of great character and sense of duty. Unlike our president who is a mobster, a Russian asset, a pawn of the Russians. 

Joseph Campbell wrote about the power of myth. Myth is the basis of civilization. The tales we tell each other is the glue that binds us together. McCabe made an interesting observation and that was that despots and religious fanatics appeal to the same characteristics in people. They claim they are right and therefore anyone not with them is wrong. It is an us against them mentality. It allows for the others to become less: less human. 

The right wing and Trump have said McCabe lied. It is the reason that he was fired. But he didn’t lie. They said he lied but he didn’t. Trump has lied. Trump has lied about McCabe lying. Trump has said McCabe got money from Hillary for his wife’s campaign for state senator. That is a lie. Nothing Trump has said about McCabe is true. They are all lies. 

I hope that we respond to the call of duty. That we sweep all these lying unseemly people out of power. I hope that Donald Trump spends the rest of his life in a super max cell with no access to twitter.

It is what he deserves.

I hope Andrew McCabe gets his pension. I hope his book sells millions of copies and that it makes him rich. I hope the next president awards him and many others who stood up to this lawless self-aggrandizing lying POS that currently inhabits the White House our highest honors.

621 Days to the 2020 election and 699 Days to Inauguration Day

PS The Book and BTS (Test your super fan knowledge!)