(CNN) Under public pressure from President Donald Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions urged FBI Director Chris Wray to jettison his deputy, Andrew McCabe. Wray threatened to quit and Sessions backed off.

Wowza.

Even if this threat was a one-off, it would be concerning. The President leaning on his attorney general to get rid of a senior law enforcement official because he believed a donation to McCabe's wife's state senate campaign by a PAC supportive of an ally of Hillary Clinton was evidence of some sort of inherent bias is hugely unusual. While the President is the head of the entire federal bureaucracy -- and the Justice Department falls within that -- typically commanders-in-chief allow the law enforcement wing to operate in a largely autonomous manner.

For the record, Trump denied Thursday that Wray ever threatened to quit. "He didn't at all," Trump told reporters of Wray. "He did not even a little bit".

Putting the he said, he said aside, this latest attempt to pressure McCabe out of his job isn't a one-off. It's not even close, in fact. It's part of a very clear pattern in which Trump steps all over the typical boundaries separating the executive branch and law enforcement for his own personal and political purposes.