Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is retiring from the FBI, CBS News’ Pat Milton has confirmed. According to Milton, a source familiar with the matter confirms that McCabe was forced to step down. He is currently on leave and will official retire in March.
The passive voice here is telling. Forced by whom? While we ponder that, the New York Times has this:
A secret, highly contentious Republican memo reveals that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein approved an application to extend surveillance of a former Trump campaign associate shortly after taking office last spring, according to three people familiar with it….The memo’s primary contention is that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials failed to adequately explain to an intelligence court judge in initially seeking a warrant for surveillance of Mr. Page that they were relying in part on research by an investigator, Christopher Steele, that had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
This, of course, is the infamous Nunes memo, and the Times is suggesting that in addition to all the other FBI targets, Republicans are starting to target Rod Rosenstein too. There’s hardly a top FBI official left who isn’t in the crosshairs of the Republican smear machine.
