Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe said Saturday evening on CNN that President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director signals how the former president plans to “disrupt,” “dismantle” and “distract” the agency under his second administration.
Trump announced Patel as his FBI pick Saturday, writing in a statement that the former chief of staff to the secretary of defense “has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice, and protecting the American people.” On “CNN Newsroom,” McCabe called the announcement a “terrible development” for those at the agency, stating that Patel has no qualifications for the job.
“It’s a terrible development for the men and women of the FBI and also for the nation that depends on a highly functioning, professional, independent Federal Bureau of Investigation,” McCabe said. “The fact that Kash Patel is profoundly unqualified for this job is not even like a matter for debate.”
“So 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, I guess we should say at this point of Kash Patel as 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,” McCabe added.
McCabe went on to highlight how the agency was weaponized under the Hoover administration, claiming that Trump is sending the FBI back to being used by the White House by selecting Patel.
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“As an organization, we know what that looks like. This country has been there before, right?” McCabe said. “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 because the director operated at the direction of presidents to collect political intelligence and to utilize the legal authorities, the investigative authorities of the FBI to terrorize and intimidate Americans.”
“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 said.
During the 2016 election, Patel criticized Mueller’s investigation into “Russian interference” during Trump’s first term and has long opposed the weaponization of the surveillance state. In a recent appearance on a podcast, Patel teased his first actions if he were to become FBI director, stating he would shut down the “FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.”
Americans’ attitudes toward the federal agency have reportedly been on a long-term decline, with only 37% of registered voters saying they view the FBI positively and 35% comparatively stating they view the agency negatively, according to a 2023 poll conducted by NBC News. In comparison, 52% of Americans polled in October 2018 had a positive view of the FBI, with only 18% expressing a negative view, the outlet reported.
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