Donald Trump's former FBI official warns the ex-prez could be a Russian ‘asset’
Andrew McCabe warns that Donald Trump could be seen as a Russian asset if he wins the upcoming election, citing Trump's unusual relationship with Putin.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has warned that Donald Trump could potentially be viewed as a Russian “asset” if he manages to win the November election.
McCabe, who was fired by Trump in 2018 just days before his retirement, made the comments on the One Decision podcast, co-hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of British intelligence agency MI6.
McCabe himself has faced scrutiny, having been investigated by the Department of Justice for allegedly lying about a media leak. The case was eventually dropped in 2020, and McCabe later settled a lawsuit with the government, which restored his full pension.
When asked if he believed “there is a possibility Trump is a Russian asset.”, McCabe responded, “I do, I do.”
“I don’t know that I would characterize it as [an] active, recruited, knowing asset in the way that people in the intelligence community think of that term,” he then clarified. “But I do think that Donald Trump has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem in the US.”
Trump has such relation with Vladimir Putin that ‘no other president has’
Notably, he addressed Trump’s unusual approach to Russia and Vladimir Putin in a way “no other president has”, citing his behaviour in “be it phone calls, face to face meetings” with the Russian president, as well as his public comments that seemed unusually favourable toward Putin. “All raise significant questions,” McCabe added.
Suspicion about Trump being a Russian “asset” dates back to the time when the FBI was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Trump’s attitude toward Ukraine and NATO and his “fawning sort of admiration” for Putin. “You have to have some very serious questions about, why is it that Donald Trump … has this fawning sort of admiration for Vladimir Putin in a way that no other American president, Republican or Democrat, ever has,” McCabe remarked.
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Russia desires to wreak havoc on America
“It may just be from a fundamental misunderstanding of this problem set that’s always a problem,” McCabe noted. “And I guess the other end of that spectrum would be that there is some kind of relationship or a desire for a relationship of some sort, be it economic or business oriented, what have you. I think those are possibilities.”
McCabe then expressed concern about the prospect of a second Trump presidency, warning that Russia's “desire to kind of wreak havoc or mischief in our political system is something that’s been going on for years, decades and decades and decades.”