Trump just handed foreign governments a new way to meddle in US elections: Ex-FBI agent

On MSNBC's "Up with David Gura" Saturday, former FBI agent and Homeland Security expert Clint Watts broke down the worst potential fallout from President Donald Trump's consistent attacks on the Russia investigation — and his recent claim that there's nothing wrong with taking political dirt from hostile foreign powers.

"If you are an investigator doing counterintelligence of our election in 2020 — you could be working at the CIA or the FBI — chances are you will be the one ultimately investigated if you push this forward," said Watts. "Would you want to run down a lead when you hear your boss is wrong, oh, by the way every FBI agent that touched the case going into 2016 has essentially been pushed out, fired, demoted."

"There are people in the ranks right now that are probably wanting to get out of foreign counterintelligence against Russia because they don't want to be put in this position again," said Watts. "And then you hear that. This sends downward pressure."

According to Watts, Attorney General William Barr's own seeming lack of interest in investigating the matter makes everything that much worse.

"What I've not heard from the attorney general — who seems to be very worried that this investigation started for some sort of nefarious reason — [he] has never said when we would actually do counterintelligence to protect in 2020," said Watts. "I would love to see him show up, provide testimony, and say under the following conditions I have asserted with the entire Department of Justice, this is when we'll do counterintelligence going into the election of 2020, if we see a foreign entity, a cutout, we see a foreign espionage agent trying to contact."

"Right now, if I wanted to tie up an FBI agent if I was a foreign adversary, I would send in someone to do a bump meeting at the Mayflower Hotel or Trump Tower like that, and I would tie that FBI agent and his squad in knots," said Watts ominously.

Watch below: