In a deep dive into how President Donald Trump's admission that he would accept foreign meddling in U.S. elections has shocked the government's intelligence services, Politico reveals that the former chief counsel for the FBI said current FBI Director Chris Wray should resign in protest if the president doesn't disavow his comments.
Noting that Wray specifically tasked the FBI with investigating and preventing foreign meddling in U.S. Elections after he was appointed, Politico reports that the president's comments have demoralized agents who feel that all of their previous work has been for naught.
As longtime FBI veteran Frank Figliuzzi, put it, Trump's comments during an ABC interview means America’s enemies will "come out of the woodwork like never before to try to influence the president. And it’s going to be more difficult to defend against because they’ll try harder than ever to mask their attempts.”
With the FBI's Wray stating, "I think my view is that if any public official or member of any campaign is contacted by any nation state or anybody acting on behalf of a nation state about influencing or interfering with our election, then that’s something that the FBI would want to know about,” Jim Baker, the former counsel of the FBI, said it was time for Wray to make a stand — or quit.
Baker, who served under former FBI Director James Comey, explained that Wray needs to confront Attorney General William Barr and the two of them need to approach the president -- or he needs to resign in protest.
"[Wray and Barr] need to have a discussion with [Trump], and if they don’t get a sense of comfort then they’ll have some hard decisions to make,” Baker explained. “I don’t think they should run for the exits right away, but they can’t just ignore this one. This is potentially encouraging criminal activity and undermining federal law.”
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