As one criminal defense lawyer I knew explained, mobsters are easier to represent than white-collar defendants because mobsters know they are criminals and recognize when a plea deal is worth taking. White-collar defendants and their families resist accepting a good plea deal even when criminal misconduct is clear. My lawyer friend sometimes hired a felon who got a psychology degree in prison to counsel white-collar defense clients and their families about the need to accept a plea deal despite the shame and loss of status involved. Even then, many gambled on their chances at trial.
Yes, mobsters are probably more realistic. Look at some of the folks who refused to plead in the college entrance scams. They knew they had done it - which means “guilty” to most mortals - but they thought they were special and justified in doing it, somehow. And now they’re looking at federal time.
I find significance here (assuming the report is true) in that a plea deal was offered, despite our elsewhere having heard the adamant claim there would be “no deals.” If it is nonetheless true that McCabe was given a deal, I would likely see it primarily as an indication that this is Barr and Durham’s “ballgame” as opposed to one micromanaged from the president’s chair. Fine.
But what I find to be one of the bigger implications is that if a plea deal was offered to McCabe, that Durham may have implicitly indicated that it is McCabe’s level of “fish” that is being used to start the domino-falling progress as this “review” has turned into a “criminal investigation.”
I suspect, however, it wasn’t a plea deal as much as an exposed declination of the idea of a plea deal. Durham may well have sought whether McCabe could be interested in a hypothetical plea deal. If McCabe could possibly be interested in a deal, he would likely have nuance his position toward the outlines of what a full-fledged deal would need to contain, or at least indicate there mighty be a deal somewhere in which he could become be interested. Apparently the indication of whatever that was came back as a “no.”
Durham could have—despite appearances—applied a feint, even while respecting the President’s wishes. Durham was perhaps more interested to gain information about McCabe’s openness for a deal rather than making any particular deal with specifics attached.
Most would consider McCabe a pretty big fish in this coup, but if Durham truly had a deal in mind for him, it would likely mean Durham has tied up loose-end evidence at lower levels and is ready to firm up his cases against against the higher ups, meaning possibly Lynch, Comey, the Clintons or Obama. Information available to Durham regarding Comey is probably similarly as solid as it is against McCabe. An up-and-up deal sought by Durham with McCabe seems a tactic to seek stronger evidence against HRC or Obama.
As the evidence against HRC has to be considered pretty darned solid, my guess is the hope for better evidence would be to use against Barry, as McCabe was perhaps a strong part of the conduit that gave rise to the lovers’ text about [Barry] wanting to know everything about their investigation [of PDJT].
Of course, getting McCabe to cooperate under the aegis of a deal, would solidify the network of an all-out “attack” on the upper-echelon (the three Rockefellers) Barry, Slick and HRC, Brennan and Clapper. Failing McCabe’s cooperation, there are still plenty of other possibilities (the Jesuit Strzok, Lynch, Page, ValJar, etc).
But why would McCabe not be interested in any deal? Three possibilities: 1) he’d think or know that he’d be signing his own death warrant, or 2) he thinks he could “keep his reserved parking pass” likely in the form of getting some “help from above” (an Obama Presidential Directive) that he may already have beeh given. Having lived near HRC, it seems possible that his perceived strength to withstand a legal onslaught might come because of his relationship to her. Or 3) he may have rigged a dead-man switch or poison pill that may never hit the news wires.
If major players may be holding Presidential Directive (PD), “get-out-of-jail-free” cards, I’m pretty sure Durham and Barr would feel a need to know that by “smoking them out.”
I believe Barr would think he could break a PD that was obviously intended to advance the necessary outline of a coup, but it would likely be much more difficult as a legal process. Thank God for the potential to use tribunals!