By Steve Neavling
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said federal law enforcement authorities are so fearful of Donald Trump winning a second term that they are considering fleeing the country.
In an interview with CNN, McCabe said the intelligence community is worried that Trump will seek retribution against his political enemies.
McCabe said members of the intelligence and law enforcement communities are having “torturous” discussions with their families about whether to leave “the country to avoid being unconstitutionally and illegally detained.”
“People are actually worried about being thrown in jail or grabbed in some sort of extrajudicial detention,” McCabe said.
McCabe said Trump “is not a person driven by principle or ideology.”
“He is someone who is entirely transactional,” McCabe said. “If he feels like he’s been wronged in some way, then he focuses on revenge and vengeance. He’s made it perfectly clear that that’s what he’s going to do.”
Last month, Trump falsely claimed that the FBI agents who searched his Florida home for classified documents last year “were ready to take me out.”
For a third time in as many days, Trump suggested on Thursday that he may seek revenge on political opponents if he’s reelected.
“He runs the risk of really dismantling and greatly incapacitating the Department of Justice and the FBI,” McCabe said. “It’s terrifying. It’s frightening. I have a lot of conversations with former colleagues, people who are — or were in the intelligence and law enforcement community, and may have worked in the Obama administration, other places. And people are really trying to assess like, what is life going to be like if Donald Trump wins a second term?”
