Andrew McCabe: Trump is inflaming violent followers 'because he knows the effects it will have'

On CNN Monday, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe tore into former President Donald Trump, accusing him of deliberately inflaming violence against the federal agents investigating him for retaining highly classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

This comes after an incident last week in which a former January 6 rioter was killed trying to shoot his way into the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"DHS' response over the last few days indicates to me that maybe they are taking this sort of violent rhetoric on largely right-wing social media sites more seriously than they did in the leadup to January 6th," said McCabe. "That has always been a massive gap for me. It's just not — it's hard to understand how, with the level of rhetoric preceding January 6th, that the FBI and DHS and other law enforcement entities didn't take that seriously. The message they put out today tells me they're watching it closely and trying to take appropriate steps."

"Should former President Trump know the effect of either his silence or his efforts to say — he's alleging the FBI maybe planted evidence, or at least laying the groundwork for that possibility," said anchor Brianna Keilar. "Should he know the effect that those actions on his part can have, when it comes to potential violence against the men and women in the FBI?"

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"Brianna, my observations on this is that he is makes those statements because he knows the effect they will have, right?" said McCabe. "He had a distinctive experience on January 6th. That crowd that came and unleashed a violent attack on the Capitol did so, according to many of them who have testified, because they thought that's what he asked them to do."

"He knows that that community of very aggrieved, politically extreme people are listening to everything he says and doesn't say," McCabe continued. "And they react in ways they think he wants them to act. I think that's why he's making the statements he is now."

Watch video below or at this link.

Andrew McCabe on Trump supporters' violent threats against FBIwww.youtube.com