It may sound like the plot of a paperback spy thriller but the conspiracy within the U.S. government to overthrow a duly-elected president is gut-wrenchingly real. Every day, more details emerge to fill in the picture of a power-drunk cabal of angry bureaucrats, wielding the power of the government to stop Donald J. Trump’s election at all costs — and when they failed, to cripple and destroy his administration with false accusations before it even got out of the starting gates.

Just weeks into his presidency, President Trump noticed that there was something amiss at the Justice Department. He used Twitter to voice his frustrations and awaken the American people to the possibility that there was a deep state effort to nullify their stated will. Of course, he was ridiculed by the Fake News media, but his words proved prescient.

While on his book tour, fired and disgruntled former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe (fired for repeatedly lying to the FBI, both under and not under oath) has finally admitted what the president knew all along: rogue FBI agents and attorneys at the Department of Justice were plotting a coup to overturn the results of the 2016 election. Shockingly, he has even told talk show hosts the contents (as he alleges) of disclosures he made to the “Gang of Eight” intelligence leaders from both parties in Congress — disclosures that the participants are not allowed to reveal, for national security reasons. But so what? He has a book to sell. The breaches of duty and the lies have become habitual to McCabe and his cronies.

In a stunning display of blind partisanship and power lust, McCabe and his co-conspirators undermined the very foundations of our system of government and justice simply because they didn’t like the determination reached by voters in the presidential election — they thought they knew better than the American people, and their betrayal of their duties and of our Constitutional order made a mockery of their oaths to uphold the laws of this country, including the supreme law, our Constitution. McCabe and his cohorts used the levers of the executive branch of government to undo the will of the people secretly, cloaked by lies and hubris. The cabal’s “insurance policy” is a coup by another name. Now we’re seeing the extent of what that insurance policy entailed — and it should horrify all freedom-loving Americans.

The malignant knot of government activists responsible for the witch hunt in search of nonexistent “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia have gone unchecked and unrestricted for over two years — hiding information from the DOJ Inspector General, refusing to cooperate with congressional investigations, breaching basic principles of the Bill of Rights, and totally ignoring their duties.

The participants in this travesty are many and powerful. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team (stacked with Democrat partisans and prosecutors known for their excesses) wiped clean nearly 20,000 text messages from the iPhone of fired FBI agent Peter Strzok — the lead Russia investigation agent who swore he’d “stop” Trump and devised the “insurance policy” with his mistress Lisa Page and McCabe — before turning them over to the inspector general.

Then there’s Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the overseer of the Mueller investigation, who allegedly offered, more than once, to wear a wire around Trump in an effort to advance the secret plot to remove the president by invoking the 25th Amendment.

On Tuesday, McCabe told The View that Rosenstein’s comments on wearing a wire to spy on Trump “never went beyond the realm of a brief, off-handed comment” and that “there was no further discussion” on it. Last Sunday, however, he told CBS’ Scott Pelley that Rosenstein “brought it up at the next meeting” and that he “he was absolutely serious” and “not joking” about secretly recording the president.

The American people should be deeply concerned that a rogue group of unelected government officials would even have considered trying to nullify the results of the 2016 elections. The fact that they stopped short of carrying out their treasonous conspiracy hardly offers any consolation — the damage they wrought both to the institutions they serve and to the presidency, like a cancer, is continuing to metastasize and cause harm.

Andrew McCabe’s legacy ultimately will be that of a man who betrayed the FBI, betrayed his oath, and betrayed his country.

Harmeet K. Dhillon (@Pnjaban) is the Republican National Committeewoman from California and vice president of communications for the Republican National Lawyers Association. She is a partner at the Dhillon Law Group.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.