Happy St. Patrick’s Day. It’s what the Irish call “amateur night.”

The Firing Line: Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a political target of President Trump, was fired late yesterday less than 36 hours before he turned 50 and planned to retire on a full pension.

McCabe was accused in an internal investigation of being less than honest about allowing two agents to talk to the press about the Hillary Clinton investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement, “The FBI expects every employee to adhere to the highest standards of honesty, integrity and accountability. I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe effective immediately.”

McCabe learned of his firing from reporters who called to ask his reaction.

President Trump tweeted, “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy.” Trump said, “He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!” That tells you something about the pressure Sessions was under to fire McCabe.

McCabe told reporters that his firing is part of an effort to undermine the Special Counsel’s investigation of Russian election influencing. He told the NY Times, “The idea that I was dishonest is just wrong. This is part of an effort to discredit me as a witness.”

Off the Record: White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had an off-the-record meeting with a select group of reporters yesterday so what he said can’t be repeated. Except by some reporters who repeated that Rex Tillerson was sitting on the toilet suffering lower intestinal distress when he was fired.

But the obvious news is that Kelly was still sitting in his office. Contrary to some predictions, neither Kelly nor anyone else on the staff or cabinet got fired yesterday. If the president plays golf today, they may be safe a while longer.

The world outside the White House is quickly filling with people who used to be on the inside; Omarosa, Hope Hicks, Gary Cohn, and Rex Tillerson. They have stories to tell and it’s only a question of whether money will pry it out of them.

In a column titled “Burn It Down, Rex,” the NY Times’  Michelle Goldberg argues that fired Secy. of State Rex Tillerson needs to go public with the horrors of serving President Trump. “Now the first line of his obituary will be about a year of abject failure as the country’s lead diplomat, culminating in a humiliation fit for reality TV,” she writes. Goldberg says, “The only way he will ever change that is by joining those who would bring this despicable presidency down. If Tillerson came out and said that the president is unfit, and perhaps even that venal concerns for private gain have influenced his foreign policy, impeachment wouldn’t begin tomorrow, but Trump’s already narrow public support would shrink further.”

Sadly, Tillerson may be the one least likely to talk. He doesn’t need money and he lives by the Boy Scout code.

Stormy Out There: The lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels is keeping the story in the public eye and ear heading toward an interview with “60 Minutes” scheduled to air a week from tomorrow.

Michael Avenatti told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Daniels has been physically threatened to keep her from talking about the affair she claims to have had with Donald Trump more than 10 years ago. “I think that when the American people hear from my client who will provide details — very specific details related to this threat — they will conclude, as I have, that this was not a random threat by some wing nut … out of the blue,” he told Tapper.

Trump has never admitted to being a party to the nondisclosure agreement Daniels signed, but the President’s lawyer now claims Daniels owes $20 million for violating the agreement 20 times. That’s what the contract says — $1 million for each violation.

Avenatti tweeted, “The fact that a sitting president is pursuing over $20M in bogus ‘damages’ against a private citizen, who is only trying to tell the public what really happened, is remarkable.”

Engineering Report: The lead engineer on the pedestrian bridge that collapsed in Miami Thursday reported cracks in the structure two days before it fell, authorities say. The engineer left a voice mail message for a Florida Department of Transportation employee, who was out of the office and didn’t get it until after the bridge was down.

Some Nerve: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it is “overwhelmingly likely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin Russia personally ordered the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter. Pinning the blame directly on Putin is an escalation of the diplomatic dispute over the attack. It’s more than Prime Minister Theresa May has said.

  “Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin and with his decision, and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe, for the first time since the Second World War,” Johnson told reporters. “That is why we’re at odds with Russia.”

The Obit Page: Louise Slaughter, the Democratic representative who was in her 32^nd year in Congress, died in a Washington hospital after a fall in her home. Slaughter was the first woman ever to serve as chair of the House Rules Committee. She was 88 and planning to run for her 17^th term.

Divorce Court: Donald Trump Jr’s wife Vanessa has piqued curiosity because she hired a veteran criminal defense lawyer to represent her in divorce. The divorce is uncontested, but with Junior a possible target in the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation, Vanessa has people wondering whether she knows something big. She filed for divorce the same day news broke that the Special Counsel subpoenaed Trump business records.

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