«Breaking News» McCabe says Justice Department held meetings to discuss recruiting Pence for a 25th Amendment push

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, recounted a Justice Department plot to remove Donald Trump from office in a television interview that will air Sunday.

Previewing the next episode of '60 Minutes,' Scott Pelley, a correspondent for CBS, said Thursday that McCabe told him about a plan to approach Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, and ask him to invoke the 25th Amendment.

'There were meetings at the Justice Department in which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,' Pelley reported on CBS 'This Morning' on Thursday.

Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, now claims that Justice Department officials contemplated a plot to remove Donald Trump from office

Previewing the next episode of '60 Minutes,' Scott Pelley, a correspondent for CBS, said Thursday that McCabe told him about a plan to approach Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, and ask him to invoke the 25th Amendment

Trump fired back at McCabe on Twitter on Thursday morning during a block of time in which he usually does have anything on his public or private work schedule

Trump invoked McCabe's wife Jill, who ran for office as a Democrat in Virginia and lost. She had the financial backing of an organization that is close to Hillary Clinton

Pelley said McCabe told him they were 'counting noses' of Cabinet officials who would vote to remove Trump after he fired James Comey in May of 2017.

'This was not perceived to be a joke,' Pelley asserted on CBS.

The journalist said the conversation took place in the eight days between Comey's dismissal and the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel. 

Trump met with the Russian ambassador the day after he ousted Comey, the former FBI director, and the Russian foreign minister at the White House. 

His campaign, several of his associates, including his one-time National Security Advsior Michael Flynn, were under federal investigation for improper contacts during the election with Russia at the time. 

'The highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president,' Pelley reported.

McCabe is the first person to confirm that the 25th Amendment came up in the meetings. The ex-law enforcement official was later fired himself over conversations with the media that an inspector general deemed inappropriate.   

Trump has claimed that Comey, McCabe and cohorts of theirs who worked on Hillary Clinton's email case and the Russian meddling probe were 'crooked' cops, and that's why he got rid of them.    

McCabe's interview set Trump off again, with the president answering him in tweets on Thursday morning during a period of time in which Trump typically has no events or meetings. 

'Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won,' Trump said.

He invoked McCabe's wife Jill's failed candidacy for office in Virginia, where she ran for office as a Democrat with the financial backing of an organization that is close to Hillary Clinton. 

The president suggested the connection to the former secretary of state who opposed him for the Oval Office caused McCabe to go easy on Clinton in the FBI's probe into her use of a private email and server.

'Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' the president wrote.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that McCabe's comments represent a 'bias against President Trump' that he intends to explore.

McCabe told CBS that the Justice Department opened counterintelligence and obstruction of justice investigations into Trump the day after he fired Comey. 

He said he moved swiftly to shore up the Russia probe such that someone appointed by Trump could not come in and shutter it without creating a paper trail. 

'I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were I removed quickly and reassigned or fired that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace,' he told Pelley in a clip that aired already. 

In a chapter of his new book, 'The Threat,' McCabe suggests couldn't be reasoned with. 

He writes in an excerpt that appeared Thursday in The Atlantic that Trump 'flew off the handle' in a call on an unsecure line the day after he fired Comey over McCabe's decision to allow the former bureau chief to hitch a ride from Los Angeles on a government plane that was flying back to Washington.

Comey was in LA giving a speech when he found out that Trump had fired him. McCabe said he decided as the acting head of the bureau that the threat posed to Comey's life was imminent enough that he should remain under federal protection.

'It was coming back anyway,' he writes of the plane. 'The president flew off the handle: That’s not right! I don’t approve of that! That’s wrong! He reiterated his point five or seven times.

'I said, I’m sorry that you disagree, sir. But it was my decision, and that’s how I decided. The president said, I want you to look into that! I thought to myself: What am I going to look into? I just told you I made that decision.' 

McCabe derides Trump in the passage for his willingness to 'comment prejudicially on criminal prosecutions' and investigations 'on ones that potentially affect him.'

'He is not just sounding a dog whistle. He is lobbying for a result. The president has stepped over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he has encountered them,' said the former law enforcement official who Trump targeted on Twitter repeatedly.   

Emphasizing his point, he said, 'Every day brings a new low, with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants.'

WHAT DOES THE 25TH AMENDMENT SAY? CAN TRUMP'S CABINET REALLY TOPPLE HIM?

The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution deals with presidential authority in the event of death or removal from office, and was ratified in 1967.

What does the 25th Amendment say?

It is in four sections. The first section states that the vice president takes over the Oval Office if the president dies or resigns – or is removed – something which the original Constitution did not clearly state.

Presidents can be removed by impeachment or through the 25th Amendment, which the Constitution's framers included as a less dishonorable way of discharging a gravely ill chief executive.

Section II states that if the vice president dies or resigns – or is fired – both the House and Senate have to confirm a new vice president, whose only real constitutional duty is to serve as president of the Senate.

Section III makes clear that the a president can temporarily delegate his powers to the vice president, and later reclaim them when he is capable of serving. This is most often invoked if a president is under the influence of surgical anaesthetic for a short period of time. 

Section IV is featured in the op-ed, and is the amendment's most controversial part.

It describes how the president can be removed from office if he is incapacitated and does not leave on his own.

The vice president and 'a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide' must write to both the president pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, saying that 'the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.'

Practically speaking, this means at least eight of the president's 15 most senior Cabinet members, together with the vice president, must agree that a president should be removed before any plan can move forward.

Notifying the House Speaker and the Senate president pro tempore is the act that immediately elevates the vice president to an 'acting president' role.

The deposed president can contest the claim, giving the leaders of the bloodless coup four days to re-assert their claims to the House and Senate. 

Congress then has two days to convene – unless it is already in session – and another 21 days to vote on whether the president is incapable of serving. A two-thirds majority in both houses is required to make that determination.

If Congress can't reach that threshold within 21 days, the president regains his powers. If it can, his powers go back to the vide president and he is dismissed from office.

What could happen to trigger the 25th Amendment?

Vice President Mike Pence and eight of the 15 'principal' Cabinet members would have to agree to notify Congress that President Donald Trump was incapable of running the country.

That group inludes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Their formal notification would go to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who holds the title 'president pro tempore' as the Senate's most senior member. As soon as the letter is sent, Pence would become 'acting president.'

What if Trump does not agree?

If Trump claims he iscapable of holding office, he would write to Hatch and Ryan within four days, setting up three weeks of intense debate in both houses of Congress.

Trumpn would be removed from office if both two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate agreed with Pence and his cabal. If either of both chambers fell short of that mark, Trump would retain his powers and likely embark on a wholesale housecleaning, firing Pence and replacing disloyal Cabinet members.

Are there any loopholes?

The 25th Amendment allows Congress to appoint its own panel of experts to evaluate the president instead of relying on the Cabinet – the men and women who work most closely with Trump – to decide on  acourse of action.

It specfies that some 'other body as Congress may by law provide' could play that role, but Pence would still need to agree with any finding that the president is incapable of discharging his duties.

If Democrats were to take over both the House and Senate, they could create such a panel with simple majority votes. 

That commission could hypothetically include anyone from presidential historians to psychiatrists, entrusted to assess the president's fitness for office. 

Could Trump fire Pence if he rebelled?

Yes, in principle.  If Trump smelled a whiff of trouble – if Pence and a panel assembled by Congress seemed ready to judge him incapacitated – he could dismiss his vice president with the stroke of a pen to stop the process.

But installing a more loyal VP could be problematic since the 25th Amendment includes its own poison pill: Both houses of Congress must vote to approve a new vice president.

That means Trump would find himself up against the same Congress that started the ball rolling, unless the process were to unfold in the weeks before a new Congress is seated on January 3, 2018.

Theoretically, a Democratic-controlled Congress could make life dramatically more difficult for the president if it came into power in the midst of the constitutional crisis. 

One scenario has appeared to stump presidnetial historians, however: Firing Pence before the process is underway, and then leaving the vice presidency vacant, would give Congress no practical way forward.

Is there any precedent for this?

No.  Only Section III, the voluntary surrender of presidential powers, has ever been used.

In December 1978, President Jimmy Carter thought about invoking Section III when he was contemplating a surgical procedure to remove hemorrhoids. 

Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both voluntarily relinquished their powers while undergoing procedures under anesthetic. 

Section IV has also never been invoked, although there have been claims that Ronald Reagan's chief of staff Donald Regan told his successor, Howard Baker,  in 1987 that he should be prepared to invoke it because Reagan was inattentive and inept.

The PBS documentary 'American Experience' recounts how Baker and his team watched Reagan closely for signs of incapacity during their first meeting and decided he was in perfect command of himself.  

Link hienalouca.com

https://hienalouca.com/2019/02/14/mccabe-says-justice-department-held-meetings-to-discuss-recruiting-pence-for-a-25th-amendment-push/
Main photo article Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, recounted a Justice Department plot to remove Donald Trump from office in a television interview that will air Sunday.
Previewing the next episode of ’60 Minutes,’ Scott Pelley, a correspondent for CBS, said Thursday that McCabe ...

It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.

Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.

Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca





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