Have you ever wondered what disgraced former deputy FBI directors do after trying to stage a coup and lying under oath? Apparently, they give talks about “protecting democracy” at top-rated institutions of higher learning. Indeed, this last Thursday the University of Chicago Institute of Politics invited former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe to join a panel of partisans to discuss the Jan 6 “insurrection.”
McCabe was fired as the deputy FBI director for leaking sensitive information about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation and then lying about it under oath. He also took part in spying on the Donald Trump campaign through a secret warrant granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
The dossier he used to obtain the surveillance warrant was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and, in an ironic twist, was itself the product of Russian disinformation. McCabe and his allies in corporate media justified all sorts of similar illegal and undemocratic tactics to discredit and attempt to unseat President Trump.
Of course, neither the University of Chicago nor McCabe acknowledged the irony in him discussing the integrity of “democracy” in America on Thursday evening. In fact, what McCabe said at the University of Chicago event on Jan. 6, 2022 is even more shocking than his invitation to speak in the first place. Below are four of the most appalling assertions and policy proposals McCabe made at the public event.
1. Conservatives Are in The Same Category As Islamic Terrorists
McCabe likened conservatives to members of the Islamic Caliphate: “I can tell you from my perspective of spending a lot of time focused on the radicalization of international terrorists and Islamic extremist and extremists of all stripes… is that this group shares many of the same characteristics of those groups that we’ve seen radicalized along entirely different ideological lines,” he said.
McCabe went on to describe the rise of the Islamic caliphate in Syria and how Islamic extremists were radicalized across socioeconomic, educational, and racial lines, likening it to the “mass radicalization” of the political right across demographics. That’s right, according to McCabe a grandma who shares a Federalist article on Facebook and your uncle with a “Let’s Go Brandon” coffee mug are in the same category as a jihadist who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.
2. Parents at School Board Meetings Pose A ‘Threat To National Security’
“Political violence [is] not just confined to the Capitol,” McCabe asserted. “It’s going on in school boards around the country. It’s going on in local elections. It’s happening, you know, even to health-care workers.” According to this politically protected former FBI no. 2, the “political violence” occurring recently at school board meetings and during local elections is a “very diverse and challenging threat picture.”
If you haven’t heard already, Democrats are branding parents who oppose child mask mandates and racist critical race theory indoctrination as “domestic terrorists.”
McCabe said moms and dads who stand up for their children’s health and education at school board meetings in ways Democrats disagree with are very dangerous. So dangerous that it is actually “essential” we have a “rapid and complete response by law enforcement at the state, local and federal level to this sort of political violence…”
Holding America’s parents “accountable” is not enough for McCabe. He wants to make sure that federal agencies also put “out that message that this sort of conduct that both horribly victimizes individuals, but also serves to undermine our democratic process” is “considered a threat to national security [that is] not tolerated.”
3. McCabe Wants More Surveillance of ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives
“I’m fairly confident,” McCabe said, “[that] the FBI [and other agencies] have reallocated resources and repositioned some of their counterterrorism focus to increase their focus on right-wing extremism and domestic violent extremists. And I think that’s obviously a good idea.”
But McCabe wants more. McCabe asserted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI need to stop merely focusing on the “fringes of the right-wing movement,” in order to “catch this threat” of the “right.”
“Are you going to catch this threat if your focus is only on the traditional, right-wing extremist, those groups that we know about, the quote-unquote, fringes of the right-wing movement?” asked McCabe. “And I think the answer to that is no.”
“It’s entirely possible that when the intelligence community and the law enforcement community looks out across this mainstream,” McCabe continued, “they didn’t assume [on January 6] that that group of people — business owners, white people from the suburbs, educated, employed — presented a threat of violence, and now we know very clearly that they do.”
McCabe wants to get around constitutional obstacles that restrict the abuses of federal agencies. He explained that the path to granting the feds more power to spy on and punish “extremists,” a.k.a. conservatives, is by implementing federal penalties against “domestic terrorism.”
A measure like this would grant domestic agencies the intelligence capabilities of the international terrorism-focused National Counterterrorism Center. It would, McCabe says, “give investigators the ability to begin investigating when folks are plotting or planning or organizing to use violence for the purpose of coercing the population or influencing government…”
Joshua Geltzer, President Joe Biden’s advisor on “countering domestic violent extremism,” made the same proposal in a 2019 hearing before a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee. In his proposal, Geltzer suggested that we need to “polic[e] [tech company] platforms to remove not just incitement to violence, but also, the ideological foundations that spawn such violence.”
McCabe claims these proposed federal laws against domestic terrorism can be implemented without infringing on Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech. That seems quite impossible, however, given Geltzer is proposing government oversight of social media, for example.
It is even more difficult to believe when you consider that Democrats are not going after real domestic terrorists and have literally defined parents speaking out at school board meetings as national security threats. As McCabe said himself, to Democrats, the extreme right is the mainstream right.
4. McCabe Believes No One Is Above The Law (Except Himself)
Ironically, one of McCabe’s last remarks was a proclamation of equality under the law. “Whether you are a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter, right, left, or otherwise, we should all be able to agree on the principle that no one is above the law,” stated McCabe.
“… [F]rom the lowliest trespasser on January 6, up to the highest-ranking government officials who may have been aware of a plan that would ultimately lead to violence in the Capitol––those people should be held accountable, period,” he announced. “And if we can’t do that, that is just another sign that we are becoming a non-functioning democracy.”
Ironically, McCabe’s firing for repeatedly breaking the law was expunged from the record only because he settled with a partisan Biden Department of Justice. If no one is above the law, as McCabe claims to support, then he would be in jail. Of course, McCabe is above the law. Only dissenting conservatives, in his view, deserve the suspicion and wrath of unelected federal agencies.
Disturbingly, the University of Chicago does not care about national introspection post-January 6, 2021. If it did, it would not have invited McCabe, of all people, to speak about “protecting democracy.”
UChicago allowed McCabe to spin lies about what truly happened one year ago and filtered student questions via Zoom, refusing to ask him any tough questions. Consequently, McCabe was given a platform to teach young, impressionable college students without question that the federal government should be weaponized against fellow Americans whom leftists brand as “extremists.”
To the elites in America—Democrats like McCabe, university administrators, and professors—January 6 is the key to labeling their political opponents as dangerous, “white supremacist extremists” and enacting new policy accordingly.
America’s universities are now indoctrination machines that shape the minds of the next generation. Academia openly exploits its power and rewrites history to serve its illiberal agenda.
Sadly, McCabe’s dishonest version of January 6 is happily accepted by the academic elites who invited him Thursday night. His frighteningly despotic views and policy prescriptions will likely be accepted and implemented by his young listeners.
*The views expressed in this article solely represent the views of the author, not the views of the Chicago Thinker.
Evita, This is both refreshing and eye opening to read. Thank you for having a voice that isnt drowned out by the elite media and dishonest FBI. McCabe needs an orange jumpsuit, or if I had my way, hung in the street after conviction.
lmao
I know charges of bad faith are thrown around so often as to be almost meaningless at this point, but this article is actual hot bad-faith garbage. I was at this event and Evita completely ignored the fact that McCabe was not the only person speaking, and there was some pretty spirited debate about McCabe’s proposal. In particular, *Democratic* congressman Krishnamoorthi, who was also present, was quite vocal in his opposition towards this legislation and raised several concerns about the ethics and effectiveness of it. Your quotes are also all taken completely out of context. Since I’m not a right-wing ideologue masquerading as a journalist, I didn’t take notes and can’t provide any specific examples. But for anyone reading, just keep in mind that (1) McCabe is, like, pretty smart and probably has put more thought into his policy positions than the author of this article, and (2) Democrats don’t actually agree with McCabe (who, by the way, is a Republican) when it comes to this.
Yeah…so smart he allowed by his own admission to have sex in his office (remember, he was the FBI’s number two guy then…smart?) and got fired for lying to congress and the FBI itself. Yeah. Real genius.
To whom much is given, much is required.
Spirited verbal nonsense can attempt to whitewash mendacity and corruption but there is no getting around the fact that #2 person in the “Bureau” co-opted his oath of office and leadership of an agency that requires modest and moral rectitude…or we are all screwed. McCabe is a self-styled moral tyrant well suited to the Clinton school of politics that he had hoped to lead the FBI during Hillary’s administration. Does anyone here remember how many hundreds of thousands of dollars his wife was given by the Clinton gang to run for Congress in VA? Of course not
However if anyone on the left truly understood the Bill of Rights enshrined in the US Constitution, then you would know that leftists are completely unsuited to being governed byy a Constitutional Republic. This includes Mr. McCabe.
Apparently you haven’t read the AP article (hardly right-wing) on January 11, 2022, “Justice Dept. creating unit focused on domestic terrorism.” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told the Senate Judiciary Committee he has decided to create a specialized domestic terrorism unit “to augment our existing approach” to the threat of domestic terrorism. E.g., the DOJ considers “domestic terrorists” as dangerous as “Islamic terrorists.” And who does the DOJ consider “domestic terrorists?” Christians, 2nd Amendment adherents, people with a different point of view on how our Republic should be run – basically anyone who has an opinion different than the government. Ask yourself why are the Antifa/BLM rioters, who burn down buildings and assault police considered by the DOJ to “catch and release” if the DOJ is serious about “domestic terrorism?” McCabe views aren’t any different. Lockstep. This is the mindset of Amerika 2.0.
I also just want to emphasize the fact that Evita completely ignored the presence of the other two speakers at this event simply because what they said doesn’t fit her narrative. Seriously, there is not a single mention of “Raja Krishnamoorthi” or “Robert Pape,” who each spoke just as much as McCabe did, and who each disagreed with him several times throughout. But this doesn’t fit her narrative, so she left it out of her article. The caricature that Evita just loves to paint of “leftist” academic elites and FBI directors (which is just completely nonsensical?? like most actual leftists hate the FBI and also *McCabe is a Republican*) is such an egregious misrepresentation of the facts that I honestly don’t know what to say. I know Evita is smart enough to know that she’s cherry-picking quotes, and I kind of just find it disappointing that a fellow UChicago student has chosen to go down this path.
Thank you, thank you, Evita Duffy – you have it exactly right about Andrew McCabe and UChicago.
Your courage is admirable!
Amen to that!!
Thank God for the Chicago Thinker and Evita Duffy
Without her, and people like her, we’d be (even more) screwed.
Yeah…so smart he allowed by his own admission to have sex in his office (remember, he was the FBI’s number two guy then…smart?) and got fired for lying to congress and the FBI itself. Yeah. Real genius.
It’s important to point out here that Evita Duffy’s intent was to highlight the dangerous attitude of the former number 2 man at the FBI. While his other interlocutors seemed to have some sense about them, Evita has done us all a service to expose the (yes, I’ll use the word) fascist nature of what we can hope is not overly prevalent in inside that law enforcement agency. To say, “yeah, but look over there” is nothing more than a diversion, as that was not the point. Imagine, if you will, if another administration were to say the same things, only this time suggesting the same investigatory powers against Democrats. The question to ask would be this: would you side with those who challenged him, or would you condemn such a comment? I know what my response would be. What would be yours?
The point of this article is not just to argue that McCabe is wrong, but to additionally argue that his view is representative of the views of Democratic voters and politicians, and that UChicago is somehow trying to indoctrinate us into believing the same. When the article concludes by talking about how “Democrats like McCabe” are trying to make policy, or about how “America’s universities are now indoctrination machine” meant to serve “academia’s illiberal agenda,” the fact that a Democratic politician and policymaker who strongly disagreed with McCabe was present is extremely pertinent, as is the fact that Evita never mentioned his presence a single time. Again, the image she is trying to evoke is of “young, impressionable” college students uncritically taking in every word that Mr. McCabe says and of Democratic politicians trying to enact authoritarian surveillance laws, an image that is completely at odds with the facts—facts that she conveniently left out.
Either way it is concerning that a former high-ranking government official in a law enforcement capacity would think in such terms. Such people have no business serving in the government of a constitutional republic, and it should make all of us wonder how many others on the taxpayer dime hold the same views.
MCabe should be in federal prison for lhis lies and disgraceful acrtions in the FBI. He promoted the big lie of Russian colllusion and he had to know the dossiere was fabricated unless he’s stupid. i think treason would be an appropriate charge.The FBI and DOJ has lost alll credibility as far as I’m concerned.
Nice reporting Evita.
Great article. McCabe is an absolute disgrace. Perfect example of “ends justify the means” attitude of anything-goes as long as my political party wins in the end.
Please contact Del Bigtree at thehighwire.com.
They sue schools for mandating students to take experimental products.
A question for the Editorial Board and for readers: If the US were threatened by a dangerous virus and had a vaccine that was effective against it, would the government be justified, morally and politically, in mandating that people either take the vaccine or live under severe and even coercive restrictions, such as not being allowed on airplanes or in public buildings?