'House of Cards': Why Trump nominees’ 'incompetence' matters the 'least'
Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, Frank Figliuzzi, on Monday explained the real danger in President-Elect Donald Trump's piling list of controversial Cabinet nominees.
MSNBC's Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace asked Figliuzzi what government could look like with MAGA nominees like former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and conspiracy theorist and Trump loyalist Kash Patel running the CIA and FBI.
The former FBI official began by pointing to far-right leaders' insistence that potential Trump officials like Gabbard and Patel are "disruptors." [They say] 'don't worry, we are just hiring disruptors to shake up the bureaucracy,'" Figliuzzi added.
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"I'm all for disrupting bureaucracy," the MSNBC contributor continued. "No one's a fan of the morass of bureaucracy at times. But these are not disruptors. These are destroyers. Their job is to search and destroy, and to dismantle the institutions that embody the values that hold us together, the rule of law, the Constitution, three equal branches of government. Our nation's security — our community's security — becomes less safe, not more safe, with people like this in these positions. People who are, yes, not qualified. Of course, remarkably unqualified. But incompetence is the least of my concern right now."
Figliuzzi continued, "The concern is the blind allegiance to the man in the Oval Office. That will be the overriding downfall of these institutions if these people are permitted to get into position. Because that blind allegiance will supplant any dedication or passion about the Constitution. They'll take an oath. They will raise their right hand. They will say, 'I swear to preserve, protect, defend the Constitution,' and the next day they'll violate it. They've already told us — Pam Bondi, Kash Patel — have already told us, 'I'm going to be violating the Constitution. I will be pursuing political enemies. I will be going after the media. I will be going after people who have already been adjudicated, fired."
The ex-FBI leader concluded, "This so-called 'Deep State' that all of this is premised on is absolutely a house of cards. So the abuses, my overriding concern here is we are going to see horrible abuses that, by the way, we've seen before in history in our FBI. J. Edgar Hoover was found to have repeatedly, repeatedly unlawfully wire tapped, searched, planted evidence, planted microphones, bugged Martin Luther King, and had a Black Panthers' leader killed in Chicago with a special unit of the Chicago PD. That's what happens when you go after perceived enemies without the evidence."
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