One former top FBI official in President Donald Trump's first administration is now saying current FBI Director Kash Patel could have committed a major error pertaining to the arrest of a judge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Patel announced the FBI's arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan on Friday morning on social media, posting to his official X account that the bureau had "evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week." The tweet was deleted, and later reposted.
"We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest," Patel tweeted. "Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public."
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In a Friday segment on CNN, Andrew McCabe — who was briefly the director of the FBI between James Comey and Christopher Wray — said that Patel briefly deleting the tweet could have been the result of an intervention with cooler heads in proximity to the bureau's director. CNN host Kasie Hunt asked McCabe if the deletion of the tweet suggests something may have happened "behind the scenes" that caused alarm within the higher echelon of the nation's top law enforcement agency.
"FBI directors traditionally do not speak about arrests in this way. They certainly don't gloat or pound their chests over them in the way that he did, here today," McCabe said. "I hope that he pulled the message down because somewhere on the seventh floor, he actually has an advisor with some common sense who he listens to. And that person said to him: 'You know what? You should take that down. It looks horrible.' And it further inserts the FBI into kind of first place on what will be a very volatile and political issue. and that is the last place they need to be."
McCabe went on to say that the federal indictment of Judge Dugan was "strong on its face," and acknowledged that the two felony counts of obstructing a federal proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent arrest were backed up by "numerous witnesses" and "a lot of facts that will support this prosecution." However, he added that the decision to arrest and charge the judge was moreso about "messaging."
"The message here is treating this judge like she just committed some sort of a violent crime — which she didn't — and publicly humiliating her. That is the message to the rest of local judges, local sheriffs, local officials who may feel uncomfortable now being on the on the pointy edge of the government's immigration efforts," McCabe said. "This is a this is an effort at intimidation. There's a clear message being sent by the administration here today. I'm not so sure that it's a good one."
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Watch the video of McCabe's comments below, or by clicking this link.