Flailing Donald Trump falsely accuses deputy FBI Director of taking a bribe from Hillary Clinton
Amid a journey that’s already taken him well beyond the outer edge of the known political universe, Donald Trump may have finally reached the point of no return. In the midst of his morning Twitter rant, Trump falsely accused his former opponent Hillary Clinton of criminal behavior yet again. This is nothing new. But in a move that’s got to be viewed as desperate and flailing even by his standards, Trump also falsely accused acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe of having taken a bribe.
Here’s what Trump tweeted this morning about McCabe: “Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!” (link). The real story is that a Clinton donor sent $500,000 to the campaign of McCabe’s wife when she was running for political office in Virginia, which is perfectly legal. But if McCabe were now refusing to investigate Clinton due to that campaign donation, then the money would be seen as a de facto bribe. As such, Trump is accusing McCabe of having taken a bribe. Of course, based on the facts, that’s a false accusation.
The FBI spent around a year thoroughly investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails, before it fully exonerated her in the summer of 2016. So as a matter of fact, Andrew McCabe isn’t investigating Hillary over her emails because it’s a long-ago settled issue. Donald Trump’s demand that McCabe launch a phony new investigation into Hillary’s emails for partisan reasons is a rather blatant abuse of power, in direct violation of the Constitution. And Trump’s decision to publicly and falsely accuse McCabe of having taken a six figure bribe is a violation of civil law.
Trump’s tweet about McCabe is an impeachable crime in and of itself. If the Democrats take control of Congress in the midterms, this incident just one of dozens of criminal impeachment charges that will immediately be brought against Trump. In the mean time, the question remains whether anyone in the current Republican-controlled Congress has the courage or patriotism to stand up against Trump’s increasingly despotic crime spree.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report