A former FBI leader trashed his successor Dan Bongino as he prepares to depart his post after less than a year on the job.
Andrew McCabe, who served in that role for nearly two years at the start of President Donald Trump's first term, told "CNN This Morning" that Bongino's complaints months ago about the tediousness of his job demonstrated how poorly suited he was for a leadership post in the federal law enforcement agency.
"This surprises absolutely no one, principally because of comments like that," McCabe said, "and I would also add the absence of other comments that you would have expected all along from a deputy director, which is the incredible privilege of being able to work at the absolute pinnacle of the world's premier law enforcement agency, working with the greatest employees on earth."
"You know, I thought it was sad that in some of the comments I saw him release, or at least one of the comments he released last night about it on on social media, he never even referenced the employees," McCabe added. "So I think it's it's the expected end of a of a period where that seat was filled by a guy who was unprepared for it and fundamentally unqualified for it. So I think at the end of the day, it's probably a good thing for both Mr. Bongino and the FBI that he moves along."
McCabe told host Audie Cornish that FBI Director Kash Patel was just as unsuited for his role.
"I think what we've seen now,there may be more inside the FBIthat we're not aware of, butwhat we've seen essentially isa reign of chaos where seniorleadership has been expelled,run out of the building simplybecause they were there during aprior, during a prior term,which is now in disfavor," McCabe said. "Thatloss of leadership, I thinkyou're seeing subtly in thesemajor investigations that theFBI is engaged in very publicly,people I know for a fact, fromtalking to many FBI people,people are terrified by the factthat their their careers may becut short simply because theyworked on matters that are nowdisfavored."
"Yeah, we've they'veinstituted polygraphs to findpeople who may be disloyal tothe director," he added. "These are thingsthat haven't happened in theFBI since J. Edgar Hoover, andthey are ultimately bad for theorganization in the country."