Ex-CIA agent: Leak of Papadopolous' Hillary confession was timed to let Trump know the FBI is 'taking off the gloves'

A CIA veteran said the bombshell report that former Trump aide George Papadopoulos drunkenly boasted to an Australian diplomat that the Trump campaign had dirt on Hillary Clinton appears to have been leaked as a warning shot to the administration.

Appearing on on MSNBC Sunday morning, former CIA agent Ned Price was asked by MSNBC host Frances Rivera about a tweet (see below) he posted on Saturday, writing: "Timing of this story is interesting, coming 4 days after Trump’s false dossier tweets, which also impugned the FBI. The FBI largely treated the Trump campaign & subsequently the Trump presidency w kid gloves. But this may indicate the gloves are coming off."

"What would this have looked like if he didn't get kid gloves?" Rivera asked.

"Let me remind you for much of 2016 the American people were under the distinct impression the FBI was investigating one of the two major party nominees," Price remarked. "We knew all along that an investigation grew out of the Benghazi probe into Hillary Clinton. Director Comey in July of 2016 then famously went out and detailed the case the FBI laid out ultimately exonerating her but doing political damage in the process. But then just a few months latter, in October, sending a public letter -- a letter made public, I should say -- essentially saying the case had been reopened. And all of that time we knew that there was this ongoing investigation into the Clinton matter."

"What we did not know until 2017 was that the FBI also had an investigation into the Trump campaign," he added.

Turning to the Papadopoulos revelation, Price elaborated.

"I don't know for certain that it came from the FBI. but the timing to me certainly is interesting," Price explained. "It did come about four days after the president's alleged that the [Steele] dossier -- falsely alleged, I should say -- that the dossier spawned this investigation when we now know otherwise. This, to me, certainly looks like it could be the FBI trying to correct the record here."

Watch the video below via MSNBC: