On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Live,” former FBI and CIA Director William Webster called President Donald Trump’s public statements attacking the FBI’s actions in the Russia probe “inappropriate.”
On Monday, Webster wrote a New York Times op-ed critical of the president and Attorney General William Barr’s reactions to the Department of Justice inspector general’s report.
NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said, “He also spoke of the FBI men and women, personnel, as scum.”
Webster said, “I hate to use that term. I’m shocked to hear that he had used it. It’s so inappropriate.”
When asked why he wrote the op-ed, Webster said, “It’s not something I want to do, but something I feel impaled to do because American people are asking now what’s happening to our government? What’s happening to the people that we trusted and need to trust? Why is all this stuff going on?”
“And I tried to raise that question because it does affect the ability of organizations like the FBI that we love and cherish and the CIA that’s done so much to gather intelligence for us, it affects their ability to do their job and their willingness to do their job and it shouldn’t be,” he continued. “It’s not American. It’s not our way of life, and it’s not the rule of law.”
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