Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s account of his time leading the agency drips with disdain for President Trump, all but calling him a tool of Russian agents acting against U.S. interests.
Vice President Mike Pence, not so much.
In his new book, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, McCabe depicts Trump and some administration officials as out to get him almost from the start of his tenure replacing fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017.
But the portrayal of Pence largely conforms with the former Indiana governor and congressman’s public image as an innocuous, behind-the-scenes figure, eager to avoid ruffling feathers or bothering anyone.
McCabe recounts his first meeting with Trump after being named acting FBI director, in the Oval Office. Joined by Pence, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, and White House counsel Don McGahn, Trump issued a thinly veiled warning in mob-boss style. The president, according to the book, brought up McCabe’s wife Jill’s unsuccessful bid for a Virginia state senate seat years prior and financial contributions she received from Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe, a close ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Pence comes off as the nice guy in a good-cop-bad-cop routine.
“Before I left, Mike Pence stepped forward and shook my hand, and said something nice,” McCabe writes. “Whatever else might be said about the vice president, I will say this: Every time I have met him, he has conducted himself as a gentleman. And manners count for a lot.”
[Read more: Andrew McCabe: ‘Gang of Eight’ was informed of investigation into Trump, ‘no one objected’]
