Former US intelligence and law enforcement officials who used their powers against Trump are now worried that they may face retribution if he wins the presidency again in November. Andrew McCabe, a former Deputy Director of the FBI fired by the Trump administration in 2018 for lying to investigators about a media leak, revealed these fears during a CNN segment on Thursday.
McCabe called the prospect of a potential Trump victory “terrifying” and “frightening,” stating that if the former president feels wronged in some way, he focuses on revenge and vengeance. McCabe also claimed that certain FBI agents are worried about Trump potentially throwing them in jail, and many are considering fleeing the country.
Although McCabe did not explicitly spell out what he and other Washington officials had done to make themselves enemies of Trump, some of their clashes with the former president are well-known. For example, Trump has accused the US Department of Justice (DOJ) of trying to help block his return to the White House by filing bogus criminal charges against him.
Last month, Trump said FBI agents were “locked and loaded” to potentially shoot him when they raided his home for classified documents in 2022. The FBI improperly spied on a Trump campaign staffer in 2016 and lied to the US FISA court to obtain warrants in a probe of alleged Russian interference in that year’s election. Additionally, the agency covered up its knowledge that the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy narrative was false.
More than 50 former intelligence agency officials put their thumbs on the scale during the 2020 election when Trump was running against Joe Biden. They falsely claimed that a Biden influence-peddling scandal reported by the New York Post just weeks before the election appeared to stem from “Russian disinformation.
McCabe said he has spoken to many former intelligence and law enforcement colleagues who are trying to assess the risks they would face in a second Trump presidential term. Some of these individuals are having torturous discussions with their family members about whether or not they have to leave the country to avoid being unconstitutionally and illegally detained.
Trump also poses the risk of “dismantling and gravely incapacitating” the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, argued McCabe. He added that Americans on both sides of the political aisle should be concerned about this potential outcome. The reliance on these institutions for protection would be significantly impacted if Trump were to proceed with his plan to tear them down.