Highest-ranking soldier in Congress offers McCabe pension-saving job

The Trump administration fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe late Friday, two days before he was set to retire. That craven move put McCabe’s pension in jeopardy. But Minnesota Democratic Rep. Tim Walz quickly stepped up to protect it.

Saturday morning, Walz tweeted an offer to McCabe of a temporary — very temporary — job in his office.

This reckless attitude towards Americans’ lives and careers is exactly why this man should not be President. Mr. McCabe, if you need a federal job for a few days, give me a call. We value servant leadership around here.

— Fmr. Rep. Tim Walz (@RepTimWalz) March 17, 2018

Walz does indeed understand the value of leadership. He’s a retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard, a position he held when he was first sworn in to Congress in January 2007.

That made him the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress. He also serves as the Ranking Member on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

And Walz very clearly cares more about the lives and livelihoods of government officials like McCabe than Trump or his surrogates do.

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan also made an offer of employment to McCabe, one he confirmed was serious. “My offer of employment to Mr. McCabe is a legitimate offer to work on election security,” Pocan noted in a statement.

Trump and his Republican allies targeted McCabe with a concentrated smear campaign. And Trump had even demanded to know how McCabe had voted in the 2016 election — something Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called “powerful evidence of obstruction of justice” by Trump.

Even the facts surrounding McCabe’s planned resignation were in question. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been pushing for McCabe’s firing for months beforehand. And FBI staffers reacted to the news of McCabe’s pending resignation with shock, wondering “what the hell is going on” at their agency.

Donald Trump Jr. appeared to confirm in February 2018 that McCabe’s planned resignation was no such thing by calling it a firing in a tweet.

But however the initial resignation actually came about, what happened Friday was a firing, plain and simple. And it was a callous decision to punish a dedicated FBI official for doing his job by attempting to keep him from receiving his earned pension.

But thanks to the generosity of people like Walz and Pocan, McCabe now has a way to get what his years of service have earned him. And Trump and Sessions can’t do anything about it.