William Webster, a former director of both the CIA and the FBI, published an incisive op-ed on Monday in the New York Times in which he took aim at, among others, his “longtime friend” Attorney General Bill Barr.
The ominous piece warned that Webster sees an “ominous threat to the country I love” under President Donald Trump.
He explained:
I am deeply disturbed by the assertion of President Trump that our “current director” — as he refers to the man he selected for the job of running the F.B.I. — cannot fix what the president calls a broken agency. The 10-year term given to all directors following J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year tenure was created to provide independence for the director and for the bureau. The president’s thinly veiled suggestion that the director, Christopher Wray, like his banished predecessor, James Comey, could be on the chopping block, disturbs me greatly. The independence of both the F.B.I. and its director is critical and should be fiercely protected by each branch of government.