Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says Donald Trump is signaling his intent to “destroy” the bureau by nominating loyalist Kash Patel as FBI director.
Trump announced the controversial nomination in a post on Truth Social Saturday, claiming that Patel will “bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI.”
But, McCabe told CNN that it is unlikely to happen under Patel’s leadership.
“The fact that Kash Patel is profoundly unqualified for this job is not even like a matter for debate,” McCabe told the network in a clip highlighted by Mediate. “I think what we should really be thinking about right now is what does this signal in terms of Donald Trump’s intent for the FBI. The installation or the nomination….. of Kash Patel, the FBI director, can only possibly be a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI, and to possibly use it as a tool for the president’s political agenda.”
Patel has previously called for stripping the FBI of its intelligence-gathering role and purging its ranks of any employee who refuses to support Trump’s agenda, Reuters report.
“The biggest problem the FBI has had, has come out of its intel shops. I’d break that component out of it. I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state,” Patel said in a podcast interview in September.
“And I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops. Go be cops.”
Patel has also railed against the so-called ‘deep state’ and vowed to punish Trump enemies including journalists.
McCabe told CNN that the country has already seen what the FBI is capable of when the “director operated at the direction of presidents to collect political intelligence and to utilize the legal authorities and investigative authorities of the FBI to terrorize and intimidate Americans.”
“The pre Watergate FBI, the J. Edgar Hoover FBI, struck fear in the hearts of Americans across the spectrum of politicians, people in entertainment, people in the civil rights community,” he said.
“So the question is, is that where we’re going back to with this nomination? I would argue that Kash Patel would be the perfect person for Donald Trump to nominate if that’s, in fact, his intent for the FBI,” McCabe added.
McCabe previously told CNN that the bureau would be in a dangerous position with Patel at its helm.
“No part of the FBI’s mission is safe with Kash Patel in any position of leadership in the FBI, and certainly not in the deputy director’s job,” he said. “The scope of authority is enormous.”
