WATCH: Ex-FBI Director Panics, Fears Kash Patel Will ‘Dismantle’ The Bureau

Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who briefly served as acting director after then-President Trump fired James Comey in 2017, panicked over the president-elect’s selection of veteran attorney and intelligence analyst Kash Patel to head up the bureau. McCabe, who currently works as a law enforcement analyst for CNN, fears that Patel will “dismantle” the agency, adding that the nomination is a “terrible development” for the FBI.

“Yeah, well, it’s a terrible development for the men and women of the FBI and also for the nation that depends on a highly functioning, professional, independent Federal Bureau of Investigation,” McCabe said when asked about the nomination on Saturday evening.

YOURS FREE: Claim Your ‘Trump Victory’ Coin NOW!

The notion that Patel is “unqualified” is highly questionable, as he has previously served as a senior advisor to the director of national intelligence (DNI) and spent time with the U.S. National Security Council. He also has an extensive legal career both as a public defender and as a federal prosecutor, where he worked primarily on nationals security cases.

Current FBI Director Christopher Wray only worked as assistant U.S. attorney general to the criminal division for less than two years under the Bush Administration before leaving government for private legal practice.

Nevertheless, McCabe continued to assert that Patel is unqualified despite having a much more extensive than the current director. “So I think what we should what we should really be thinking about right now is what does this signal in terms of Donald Trump’s intent for the FBI? The installation or the nomination, I guess we should say at this point of Kash Patel as FBI director can only possibly be a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI, and to possibly use it as a tool for the president’s political agenda,” he said.

McCabe — who signed off on a bogus surveillance warrant targeting Trump Campaign officials off the word of Clinton Campaign-funded research — went on to claim that Trump will politicize the FBI to go after his opponents.

“And, you know, as an organization, we know what that looks like. This country has been there before, right? The pre-Watergate FBI, the J. Edgar Hoover FBI struck fear in the hearts of Americans across the spectrum of politicians, people in entertainment, people in the civil rights community, because the director operated at the direction of presidents to collect political intelligence and to utilize the legal authorities, the investigative authorities of the FBI to terrorize and intimidate Americans,” the former deputy director went on to say.

“So the question is, is that where we’re going back to with this nomination. I would argue that Kash Patel would be the perfect person for Donald Trump to nominate if that is in fact his intent for the FBI.”

Since 2017, the FBI has participated in numerous raids and politically motivated prosecutions of Trump supporters and conservative activists. Former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend testified that he was instructed to surveil parents and take down license plate numbers at his local school board meeting after Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the bureau to investigate critics of DEI-themed curriculum in schools.

FBI agents have also conducted pre-dawn raids against Trump supporters over the January 6 Capitol protests for four years, with arrests continuing even after Trump’s election. The bureau has not participated in similar raids against pro-Palestine protesters and other left-wing activists, who have been able to commit the same trespassing offenses January 6 defendants are subjected to armed raids for with impunity.

Agents have also abused surveillance data bases used to monitor terrorists in order to monitor January 6 protesters.

According to a report from the Washington Post, the agency used the Section 702 electronic database against January 6 participants, crime suspects, and 19,000 donors to a Congressional candidate. The Section 702 database is managed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and can be accessed by the FBI and NSA. The FBI is only permitted to access the database if they suspect information from foreign intelligence agencies can be uncovered.

In total, the court determined roughly 300,000 abuses between 2020 and early 2021. The report notes that one FBI employee ran 23,132 inquiries on American citizens following the January 6 Capitol protests, even though they had no reason to suspect they had ties to foreign governments.

Patel has vowed to bring major reforms to the politicized organization once in office. “The biggest problem the FBI has had has come out of its Intel shops. I’d break that component out of it. I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state,” Patel said during a recent appearance on the Shawn Ryan Show.

“And I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops, you’re cops, go be cops, go chase down murderers and and drug dealers and violent offenders. What do you need 7,000 people there for? Same thing with DOJ. What are all these people doing here?” he continued. “Looking for their next government promotion, looking for their next fancy government title, looking for their parachute out of government. So while you’re bringing in the right people, you also have to shrink government.”

(FREE GUIDE: Trump’s Secret New “IRS Loophole” Has Democrats Panicking)