'Unqualified': Former CIA director slams Trump Cabinet nominee

12 December 2024

On Wednesday, December 11, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that he is resigning and will be gone before President-elect Donald Trump begins his second term.

Trump, who has nominated far-right QAnon supporter Kash Patel for FBI director, planned to fire Wray. But Wray has decided to leave the FBI before Trump has a chance to fire him.

Some of Wray's supporters wish he would remain in his position until after Trump is sworn in as president. And one of them is former CIA Director John O. Brennan.

During a Thursday morning, December 12 appearance on MSNBC, Brennan laid some out reasons why he considers Patel unfit to head the FBI.

When MSNBC's Ana Cabrera asked Brennan if Wray should have "stayed and forced Trump to fire him," the former CIA director replied, "I was deeply disappointed yesterday when I heard that Director Wray had decided to step down. I think Director Wray has carried out his responsibilities — his very solemn responsibilities over the last seven years — with great professionalism and integrity, and in a very nonpartisan, apolitical way."

Brennan went on to warn that Patel is the exact opposite of nonpartisan and apolitical.

"It's clear that Donald Trump's announcement that he was going to fire Wray and his selection of Kash Patel was with politically corrupt intent," Brennan told Cabrera. "That's because he didn't like some of the things that Christopher Wray did. Donald Trump wants somebody at the helm of the FBI who is going to carry out his agenda, and Kash Patel, over the last number of years, has demonstrated, over and over again, that he is exceptionally malleable in Donald Trump's hands."

Brennan continued, "And so, I really do think that this is a defining moment in a very unfortunate way in terms of the FBI."

The former CIA director predicted that Patel's nomination will "fracture the FBI," adding that his statements are "sending shivers down the spines of many FBI officers." And Brennan was especially troubled by Patel's threat to use the FBI against journalists who are critical of Trump.

Brennan told Cabrera, "Kash Patel not only doesn't have the executive experience that is needed to run an organization such as the FBI…. But clearly, he is disparaging the work of the FBI…. His attitude, I think, toward the Bureau reflects the attitude of a Donald Trump and also, unfortunately, members of the Republican Party in Congress who don't want to have an independent and apolitical FBI."

The former CIA director continued, "They want something that Donald Trump can use for his own advantage to go against his rivals. Again, this is something I've seen overseas in terms of authoritarian leaders and autocrats who control the instruments of power (with) intimidation and fear…. I do not believe he is somebody who is qualified to lead the Bureau."

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