https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/14/politics/andrew-mccabe-donald-trump-department-of-justice/index.html
President Donald Trump
is deeply invested in the idea that there is a "Deep State" embedded
within the government bureaucracy -- and centered in the Department of
Justice -- which actively worked to defeat him in 2016 and then sought
to undermine him once he won the presidency.That conspiracy theory, which has never had much merit, suffered a near-fatal blow Friday afternoon when the Department of Justice declined to pursue criminal charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
That decision ends a
nearly-two-year investigation into whether McCabe, in his role as a
senior official in the FBI, lied to investigators about conversations he
had with reporters. McCabe had long insisted that if he had done so it
had been purely accidental, and noted that, in his role, he was
authorized to speak to the media.
Trump
spent much of the investigation dumping on McCabe, a man who he
insisted was, along with former FBI director James Comey, at the center
of the "Deep State" conspiracy against him.
