Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), said President Trump is aiming to have the Department of Justice (DOJ) return to “pre-1970s days” after the agency fired several prosecutors who handled the president’s criminal investigations.
“This is a complete undermining of that system and essentially a return to those pre-1970s days where government jobs were filled by political hacks who simply did the will of the administration,” McCabe said during a Tuesday CNN appearance.
“That‘s clearly where the Trump Administration is trying to take the Department of Justice.”
The DOJ’s cited “trust issues” as the reason for its recent decision to fire several prosecutors who handled Trump’s criminal investigations.
“Obviously, this is an opportunity for President Trump to kind of exact retribution on the prosecutors he blames for his, you know, miseries of the last four years,” McCabe said.
“These sorts of actions spread like a virus through the organization. It‘s a — there will be a chilling effect that impacts every other prosecutor in DOJ, and it enters into their minds for the first time questions about how they should be pursuing their jobs, who they should be investigating, what cases they should be trying to prosecute, and specifically what will happen to them if they pursue some target of an investigation who happens to be a friend or an affiliate of someone in the White House,” he added.
McCabe stated that the measure is a sign to other federal prosecutors to get in line with the Republican administration.
“But again, this is an effort to — it’s a shot across the bow to our federal prosecutor service in this country that says, ‘You better line up with what the White House wants, not what the law says, not what the facts presented in front of you demand, but with what the White House wants before you start making any decisions in a prosecution,’” he stated.
Some agree with McCabe and have said the president is enacting a retribution agenda against enemies past and present through his return to power.
Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton said the president’s move to revoke his security detail was a part of a broader campaign.
“I think this kind of attitude by Trump shows that what his real motivation was entirely political,” Bolton said during his Friday appearance on NewsNation. “This is part of the retribution campaign.”
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
