In a better world, all of these nature's noblemen presently coming out of the woodwork to explain how they knew El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago was a danger to democracy before anyone else did would be doing so without having a book to pitch. But, what the hell, you defend democracy with the democracy you have, right? Anyway, now it's defrocked FBI guy Andrew McCabe's turn in the spotlight, and he's making the most of it. He told 60 Minutes that he had opened investigations into the president* because he genuinely suspected that the president* at least might be an unwitting Russian asset. On Tuesday, he dropped by the TODAY show and raised his bet.

All weekend, the president*'s defenders pounded away at McCabe's 60 Minutes interview as proof of the "deep state" conspiracy to undermine the administration*. On Tuesday, McCabe told Today that he had informed the so-called "Gang of Eight"—the bipartisan congressional intelligence chiefs—that he was launching the investigations and that none of them raised any objections. From Politico:

On Tuesday, McCabe disputed the insinuation made by some of his critics that he had made the decision to investigate Trump on his own, arguing that the decision was not a spurious one. “Opening a case of this nature, not something an FBI director — not something that an acting FBI director would do by yourself, right? This is a recommendation that came to me from my team,” he added. “I reviewed it with our lawyers. I discussed it at length with the deputy attorney general… and I told Congress what we’d done.”

Devin Nunes Tom Williams Getty Images

The former FBI deputy director warned that just because investigations had been opened it did not mean the agency had drawn any conclusions about them thus far.But, he argued, “you have to ask yourself, if you believe the president might have obstructed justice for the purpose of ending our investigation into Russia, you have to ask yourself why. Why would any president of the United States not want the FBI to get to the bottom of Russian interference in our election?”

The Gang of Eight is made up of the Democratic and Republican leadership in both houses of Congress, plus the chairman and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. In 2017, at the time McCabe requested the investigation, these would have included Senator Mitch McConnell, Speaker Paul Ryan, Richard Burr, and White House lawn ornament Devin Nunes from the House. According to McCabe, even Nunes didn't object to the investigation. This is just a bit astounding, considering the supine performance of congressional Republicans once the president* got sworn in.

They all know. That's the main thing. They all know and they've done nothing. Historians one day will fall out of their anti-gravity chairs.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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