(THREAD) The Attorney General pressuring the FBI to fire Andrew McCabe is *much* bigger news than many think. I explain why—and it's not very complicated, either—in this brief thread. Hope you'll pass it on. 
1/ First, here's the story itself, broken today by Axios: axios.com/scoop-sessions…
2/ You need to know three things about McCabe:
(a) He's due to retire in a few months—and could lose his pension if he's fired.
(b) He's Comey's chief corroborating witness as to Trump's conversations with Comey.
(c) Sessions is recused from all Russia and election-related cases.
(a) He's due to retire in a few months—and could lose his pension if he's fired.
(b) He's Comey's chief corroborating witness as to Trump's conversations with Comey.
(c) Sessions is recused from all Russia and election-related cases.
3/ So Sessions—whether he did it of his own volition or at Trump's demand or encouragement—should never have been pressuring the FBI to fire McCabe over McCabe's involvement in the Clinton email investigation, given that that's an election-related matter Sessions is recused from.
4/ Moreover, the effort to fire Andrew McCabe over events that occurred 18 months ago, and to do so just months before he retires, is an obvious attempt to punish McCabe—via loss of his pension—for events that came *long after* his involvement in the Clinton email investigation.
5/ What events would those be? Well—the only time McCabe has been in the news is as *one of the chief witnesses against the President of the United States in a federal felony investigation that could lead to the president's impeachment for Obstruction*. That's kind of a big deal.
6/ But this goes beyond Sessions—possibly at Trump's direction—trying to punish McCabe financially. That would be mere vengeance, and wouldn't get Trump what he really wants here. What he wants is to *discredit McCabe as a witness in any future impeachment proceedings or trials*.
7/ If McCabe is fired, rather than merely retiring—and if he's fired *because of allegations he was somehow "pro-Clinton" during the Clinton email investigation*—his evidentiary value as Jim Comey's chief corroborating witness against Trump is severely damaged. Trump knows this.
8/ If McCabe is knocked out as a credible witness—if not *actually*, then at least in a way Trump's allies in Congress can *claim* during impeachment proceedings—the Comey-Trump tilt may well be a "he said/he said" between Trump and Comey (and Comey's contemporaneous memos, too).
9/ So Sessions violated his recusal to try to permanently destroy the credibility of a key witness against Trump in a future criminal proceeding—and may have done so at Trump's direction. (To be frank, *all America* assumes that it was at Trump's explicit or implicit direction.)
10/ So this Axios story is *further* evidence of Obstruction of Justice against the president, and *further* evidence of a conspiracy to Obstruct Justice on the part of Sessions—who's already being looked at for this because of his fraudulent memo assisting Trump in firing Comey.
CONCLUSION/ Trump again—it seems—using Sessions to generate a false basis for firing an FBI witness against him is major international news because it's *key* evidence in a possible future criminal proceeding against Sessions and impeachment or criminal proceedings against Trump.
NOTE/ Lest anyone be confused, McCabe is a corroborating witness for Comey because Comey testified to Congress that he *contemporaneously* relayed the content of his meetings with President Trump—which content could be enough to support an Obstruction of Justice charge—to McCabe.
