Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, said on Friday that former President Donald Trump has been at war with the agency since 2016 and warned of the risks to agents after the former president's Mar-a-Lago residence was searched by federal officials last week.
During an appearance on CNN's "New Day," the deputy director of the FBI said that Trump's broadsides against the department took a toll.
The work environment for FBI people has been getting more and more difficult. He said that he was tougher over the last few years.
Since we opened a case on his campaign, Trump has been at war with the FBI. That has a corrosive effect on the ability of FBI agents and professional support staff to trust one another.
There was a high-profile incident last week where an armed man tried to force his way into an FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was subsequently shot and killed by an FBI agent.
The suspect, Ricky Shiffer, had been a frequent contributor to Trump's Truth Social platform and had made a series of posts that appeared to reference his feelings about the Mar-a-Lago search.
Some documents labeled as "top secret" were among the 11 sets of classified documents retrieved by the FBI from the presidential residence.
The threat of political violence can be accessed by Donald Trump and directed by him, which is an incredibly potent example of the state of the threat in this country. He made a statement immediately after the search warrant was executed at Mar-a-Lago, assuming that the individual's motive was to attack the FBI.
This is what counterterrorism experts and observers have been talking about for months. Donald Trump has an amazing amount of influence over people who harbor these sorts of beliefs when he baselessly floats out an allegation, as he did on Monday, about the FBI possibly planting evidence in his residence.
Trump, who lost his reelection bid to now- President Joe Biden, still wields an enormous amount of influence in the political area.
Those with more radical views of the government are also influenced by this.
He said that Trump knows that it can inspire people who harbor extreme beliefs to take action. It is extremely dangerous.
FBI agents continue to perform critical work across the country every day, and political leaders haven't been forcefully in repudiating attacks against the agency, according to the man in charge.
He wanted to know where the political leaders of both sides were. Some of the extremists are being pushed in that direction by their own rhetoric. They should be doing everything they can to stop this.
He said that they should make statements about responsibility, about true patriotism, no matter how they feel about the investigation.
Last week's release of the FBI search warrant and property list for the Mar-a-Lago search revealed that agents were looking for documents related to the Espionage Act, which bars the unauthorized removal of defense-related information that could aid a foreign government.
The president is being investigated for possible obstruction of justice.
In August of last year, he said Trump was threatening members of law enforcement over his call for "justice" against the Capitol Police officer.
An inspector's general report said he had not been forthcoming about a leak to a newspaper regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.
He was terminated for political reasons, according to the lawsuit.
He won back his full pension after the Department of Justice reversed his firing.
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