A few hours after Fox’s Maria Bartiromo suggested to Mark Meadows that Trump fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel for “insubordination,” Axios reported that Trump plans to fire them “immediately” after November 3, if he wins re-election.
Fox’s Maria Bartiromo couched her suggestion to her adored p***y grabber in the form of a question to Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows. Apparently, she doesn’t realize that the directors of both the FBI and CIA are supposed to be loyal to the Constitution and the American people more than they are loyal to Trump. Or maybe she just doesn’t care.
Media Matters caught the moment:
BARTIROMO: Alright before you go, Chief, I want to ask you about the cover-up here because the FBI had this information for a year. Even as the president was getting impeached in January of this year, the FBI had these e-mails and the laptop from Hunter Biden. They sat on it, the media won't show it.
Will Christopher Wray be fired after the election for insubordination, for not releasing this and to the public, and what about Gina Haspel, we're understanding that she's also blocking the dissemination of declassified documents. Will these two be fired after the election?
Meadows replied that “obviously” he wouldn’t get into personnel issues on national TV. But he surely knew that Bartiromo was speaking to the Fan-in-Chief more than asking him a question. And he surely knew that Trump considers Fox News sycophants his most trusted advisers. Meadows responded by hinting the two directors deserve to be fired.
MEADOWS: I can tell you, it is troubling. When you’re fighting against the swamp and the swamp continues to fight back with a lack of transparency, that’s very troubling. There will be accountability. This president’s gonna make sure he holds his administration very accountable so that they’re transparent for the American people.
In a scoop, just a few hours after Bartiromo’s show, Axios reported that if Trump is re-elected, he’ll immediately fire Wray and Haspel.
Wray and Haspel are despised and distrusted almost universally in Trump's inner circle. He would have fired both already, one official said, if not for the political headaches of acting before Nov. 3.
According to Axios, Wray’s sins are not opening a formal investigation into Hunter Biden's foreign business connections, not purging more Russia investigators and contradicting Trump’s claims of election fraud.
Haspel is against Trump loyalist John Ratcliffe declassifying documents and wants to protect sources.
Fox has been campaigning for months for Trump to fire Wray. I’ve seen complaints about Haspel but I do not recall hearing a call for her to be fired before. But I could have missed it.
You can watch Bartiromo put loyalty to Trump over loyalty to America and democracy below, from the October 25, 2020 Sunday Morning Futures, via Media Matters.
