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Former Fox News host Geraldo Rivera admitted Wednesday night that the FBI got “too political” and is in need of “a cleansing.”

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Kash Patel, who has a history of criticizing the agency over its probes into Trump, to be FBI director Nov. 30, to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray, who announced Wednesday he would step down. Rivera said that he didn’t know Patel, and accused him of being part of the “lunatic wing” of Trump supporters, but admitted that the FBI had crossed the line into being “too political” under James Comey.

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“I don’t know a lot about Kash Patel. I’ve never met him, as far as I know. All I know is that he seems to me, from what I read and what I see and hear, is that he’s part of the, if not the chairman, of the lunatic wing, the Steve Bannon, Alex Jones wing of the MAGA movement,” Rivera said on “CNN NewsNight.” “You know, throw Matt Gaetz in there, if you will. But Kash Patel, if you’re looking for an objective professional, you know, resurrector, a savior of the FBI, you better not hold your breath waiting for Kash Patel to deliver. I think the one thing that Scott said that I think is very important is that he mentioned how the FBI got too political. That is true. That wasn’t Trump. That was James Comey.”

The FBI came under fire in recent years over the agency’s contacts with social media companies, the targeting of parents protesting at school board meetings, the potential presence of FBI sources at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol building, a memo published January 2023 warning about “radical traditionalist” Catholics and the conduct of an Aug. 8, 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago as part of a probe into allegations surrounding Trump’s handling of classified documents.

“James Comey mucked up Hillary Clinton’s electoral run and he went after the president, President Trump in his first term that, in 2017, President Trump could not — he stepped in dog crap and he just couldn‘t get rid of James Comey,” Rivera said. “He hounded him — another canine metaphor, but I think the FBI needs a cleansing and I think Christopher Wray was heroic in stepping down. But I also think that the Bureau does need some profound introspection.”

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Comey came under fire during the 2016 presidential campaign over the pressconferences he held about the investigation into a server set up in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Chappaqua home. Comey said that Clinton was “extremely careless” with classified information, but also said that she shouldn’t be prosecuted in the July press conference.

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