Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said the bureau would be endangered if Kash Patel, a former aide to President-elect Trump, is nominated and confirmed to lead the agency.
“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,” McCabe told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday evening, adding that “The scope of authority is enormous.”
“If you enter into that position with nothing more than a desire to disrupt and destroy the organization, there is a lot of damage someone like Kash Patel could do,” he said.
Patel has remained loyal to the president-elect after serving as a senior advisor to the then-acting director of national intelligence, and chief of staff to former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller during Trump’s first term. But he has never been directly employed by the FBI.
Earlier in the interview, McCabe mentioned the years of experience within the agency that is required to understand its complex structure.
“I can tell you from my own experience, there is no way I could have successfully performed in that role without having spent the first 10 years of my career doing criminal work in the FBI,” he said on CNN’s “The Source.”
Former FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner also said Patel’s leadership would do “massive damage” to the agency.
“Putting someone like Kash Patel in the position of director of the FBI is, I believe, extremely, extremely dangerous because … his resume isn’t traditional,” Brunner said Sunday on CNN.
However, Trump’s choice is on par with other appointments. Some have questioned the backgrounds of former Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth, who was nominated to lead the Defense Department, and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who was tapped as director of national intelligence..
The president-elect has prioritized a reformatory administration with the help of billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur — and former primary rival —Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-head the new Department of Government Efficiency, which was created to do away with “wasteful” federal agencies.