Former FBI Deputy Director Blasts Kash Patel for ‘Elevating Risk’ for Agents During John Bolton Raid with X Post: ‘Irresponsible!’
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe accused current FBI Director Kash Patel of “elevating” the risk for his own agents by posting to X about a raid on John Bolton’s Maryland home.
Bolton’s home was raided by FBI agents on Friday morning. The exact details behind the search are not known, but it is reportedly part of a national security investigation. Agents have been seen by media carrying boxes of documents out of the house.
Critics of Trump, including Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), have tied the raid to Bolton’s public criticism of his former boss. Bolton previously served as national security advisor under Trump, but he’s been highly critical of his foreign policy efforts, including his negotiations for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
McCabe joined CNN’s Kate Bolduan and John Berman on Friday and blasted Patel’s handling of the raid, specifically his post to X about it.
“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Patel posted on Friday morning.
“So I should say, with respect to the director’s social media posting, I mean, it’s yet another example of, in my opinion, Kash Patel failing to live up to the example of his predecessors,” McCabe said in reaction. “This is not the kind of thing that any FBI director has ever done. FBI directors don’t gratuitously point towards search warrants and the people who are the targets of those warrants in any sort of way that could possibly be interpreted as grandstanding and nonsensical, as this one certainly suggests.”
He further argued Patel’s focus on this case over others has clear “implications.”
“I’d also point out that Kash Patel’s agents are out on mission every day, all over this country, all over the world, in fact, doing the FBI’s work. You don’t see him posting quite as often about that. So I think the implication here is pretty clear. He wanted to draw attention to this sensitive law enforcement activity at John Bolton’s house,” McCabe said.
Drawing this extra attention, he added, is “irresponsible” and elevated the risk for the agents involved.
“Anytime you draw a press attention to a search warrant execution, you are elevating the risk that is posed to both the agents and the occupants at that place,” he said. “So it’s a pretty irresponsible thing to do.”
Watch above via CNN.
