There are, however, at least two features of the action against McCabe that warrant consternation, even if McCabe himself behaved badly enough to justify the sanction. The first is the timing, which is hard to understand. The only factor we can fathom that might justify it is the notion that if McCabe in fact had acted very badly, the window to punish him and thus make an important statement to the bureau workforce was closing.

But we are unaware of prior cases in which authorities rushed through the merits against a long-serving official in a naked and transparent effort to beat the clock of his retirement…

The timing seems particularly irregular in light of a second peculiarity unique to McCabe’s case—one probably singular in the history of the American republic: Trump’s personal intervention in the matter and public demands for the man’s scalp. Trump has not been shy about McCabe. He has tormented him both in public and in private, and he publicly demanded his firing on multiple occasions