During a CNN panel discussion over the sudden departure of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe,who was reportedly forced out by Trump administration officials, a CNN national security analyst explained that his leaving well before the FBI releases the fruits of their investigation could cripple President Trump's inevitable attack on the report's veracity.
Speaking with CNN host Brooke Baldwin, Julia Kayyem more or less agreed with an earlier CNN guest that Trump's FBI problems won't be walking out the door with McCabe.
According to former FBI supervisory agent, James Gagliano, McCabe's leaving comes as no surprise since officials in his position often move on after a few months.
"My job obviously here is to call law enforcement balls and strikes," Gagliano explained. "In the 110-year history of the FBI, there have only been eight full-time appointed directors and every one of them had their own deputy directors. The average tenure of those deputy directors is typically between three and six months. Director Wray, the eighth appointed director and confirmed by Congress came on board in August. So without all the hysteria and the noise on the outside, this is a normal process and protocol."
"If Andy McCabe had been 50-years-old when Director Wray took over, in my estimation and that of many former FBI agents who know the process and how it works, he would have stayed a couple of months out of courtesy to the new incoming director until he could have selected his own person," he stated.
Co-panelist Kayyem had a slightly different take, saying Trump and his people are doing themselves a disservice by forcing out future fall-guys.
"It is possible this is horrible because this is an attack on law enforcement," Kayyem began. "But just like everything that the White House does, they're doing this horribly. In other words; there's another way to look at it in the sense of the cover-up is so bad."
"We know why it's so bad in the sense when you ask a question 'why is Trump trying so hard to get rid of all these people?' and it can only be because whatever is underlying the investigation is worse than all of this fumbling," she elaborated. "But just taking it forward two or three weeks, this may actually come to the detrimental of the White House because then Wray has brought in people who are long-term FBI agents. He has a deputy director who's not under the Twitter attacks."
"You may actually see this be something that is like other things the White House has done -- for example, firing [former FBI director]Comey," she continued. "That this may actually in the end get us closer to the truth, which many of us believe has got to be worse than whatever this cover-up is that they're trying to do."
You can watch the video below via CNN:
