Former President Donald Trump, who refused to return classified documents that he removed from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago residence after he lost the presidency, recently claimed that the FBI agents who searched his home for the documents (with a search warrant) “were ready to take me out.”
To conjure the idea that the U.S. government had plans to “assassinate” him — as MAGA Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told her followers — Trump twisted the FBI’s boilerplate instructions for agents in search situations, including limits on their use of lethal force. (NOTE: Trump’s lawyers were informed about the search and Trump was not on the premises during the “undramatic” search.)
In the wake of a New York jury finding Trump guilty on 34 felony counts last week, the former President has ramped up his rhetoric promising a second term seeking revenge and punishment for those who have crossed him, particularly those in the Justice Department.
Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the FBI (when Trump fired James Comey in 2017), told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins that people he knows in the intelligence and law enforcement community are having “torturous” discussions with their families about what to do if Trump is re-elected including “leaving the country to avoid being unconstitutionally and illegally detained.”
Andrew McCabe says employees of the FBI are worried about Trump jailing them and are thinking of fleeing the country pic.twitter.com/1SHq38jsnG
— ALX (@alx) June 6, 2024
McCabe added, “People are actually worried about being thrown in jail or grabbed in some sort of extrajudicial detention.”
McCabe said of Trump: “He is not a person driven by principle or ideology, he is someone who is entirely transactional. 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.”