OBSTRUCTION IS AS OBSTRUCTION DOES:

FBI agents are trained to identify and mitigate threats. It's clear that McCabe was seriously concerned about a national security threat emanating directly from the Oval Office. As such, he tried to mitigate that threat. These passages paint an image of a chaotic administration made even more chaotic with the firing of the FBI director.

In an interview Sunday on CBS, "60 Minutes," McCabe stated that during the days after Comey was fired, "the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the President," even exploring the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to have Trump removed from office. [...]

Shockingly, as excerpted in the Washington Post, McCabe recounts an Oval Office briefing in July 2017, wherein the president refused to believe a U.S. intelligence report that North Korea had test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Trump dismissed this intelligence as a "hoax" because Russian President Vladimir Putin told him North Korea lacked that capacity. To a trained senior FBI agent and lawyer like McCabe, this would have fueled further concern that a president whose potential ties to Russian agents was already under suspicion, was relying on and receiving disinformation from the head of our most formidable adversary.

In McCabe's telling, he was seriously worried that obstruction of the Mueller probe was happening or could happen. In his "60 Minutes" interview, McCabe said that fearing he might be fired, he moved to try and ensure the "Russia case was on solid ground." He took steps to make it tougher for anyone to end the investigation if he was removed. Specifically, McCabe said he ordered an obstruction of justice investigation of the president. This additional obstruction component would have added a layer of protection to the Russian case in that someone trying to close the investigation would have had to prove that decision was not intended to obstruct, or aid the president in obstructing, the broader investigation.

Of course, McCabe's fears about his job were warranted. He was fired from the FBI a mere 26 hours before he could have retired with an FBI pension. This firing was the result of a DOJ Inspector General inquiry that recommended McCabe be fired for an unauthorized media disclosure and for lacking candor on four occasions. I led an adjudication unit in the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility and was responsible for disciplinary decisions in cases of serious misconduct. I later served as the FBI's chief inspector, investigating and reviewing sensitive personnel and program performance issues. In the hundreds of internal investigations that I've handled, I never saw an FBI employee fired within 26 hours of retirement.

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