And McCabe is just one in a long line of federal law enforcement officials Trump has argued are part of a political cabal — a “deep state” — that has abused the justice system to unfairly target him. Never mind that it was his 2016 rival, Clinton, who was the subject of a highly publicized FBI investigation while inquiries into Trump were kept secret — or that it was McCabe who was running the Clinton investigation.
For months, Trump cast a number of federal officials, including some of his own appointees, as adversaries or at least impediments in his pursuit of justice. That includes not just McCabe, Comey and Mueller — all longtime Republicans — but his own attorney general, former Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, as well as a handful of other law enforcement officials who have come in contact with aspects of the Russia probe.
Former Rep. David Jolly, a Florida Republican who sat on the committee overseeing funding for the Justice Department and the FBI, said there’s a risk to the country in the way Trump has attacked institutions of justice.
“Historically, the nation has rightly had a deep trust in the FBI,” he said. “The danger in Trump now politicizing the bureau is that it erodes our confidence in one of the few pure arbiters of justice. Trump has hijacked the bureau politically, and in turn wrongly suggested the bureau is a partisan organization. It is not.”
But for Trump’s case to hold water, the FBI and Justice Department have to be stocked with partisans — not Democrats or Republicans, but anti-Trump partisans — who are conducting a baseless witch hunt.