Ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe agreed there is a “mass radicalization on the Right” and that law enforcement should scrutinize “mainstream” conservatives in the wake of last year’s Capitol riot.
McCabe, who served as the FBI’s second-in-command from 2016 to 2018, also compared “right-wing extremists” to U.S. citizens who joined ISIS, calling for a federal domestic terrorism law during a virtual discussion about Jan. 6 last week.
“I’m fairly confident from what little we’ve heard from the FBI that they have reallocated resources and repositioned some of their counterterrorism focus to increase their focus on right-wing extremism and domestic violent extremists,” McCabe said during a panel by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. “And I think that’s obviously a good idea.”
McCabe said the FBI may be looking at the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys when the real threat is more mainstream.
“It’s entirely possible … they didn’t assume that that group of people — business owners, white people from the suburbs, educated, employed — presented a threat of violence, and now we know very clearly that they do,” McCabe said.
GARLAND SAYS DOJ STANDS BY CONCLUSION THAT MCCABE LIED
The Justice Department said at least 725 defendants have been arrested in connection with the Capitol riot and that more than 225 defendants had been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers. However, despite initial hype from a former top DOJ prosecutor, no one has been charged with insurrection or sedition.
During the discussion, McCabe compared conservatives to U.S. citizens who traveled to Syria to join ISIS, claiming a “mass radicalization on the Right” is underway.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
McCabe has been slow to recognize acts of terror perpetrated by the Left. He was acting director of the FBI when it refused to label the GOP congressional baseball shooting in 2017 as a domestic terrorist attack. The FBI finally admitted in May that the Virginia baseball field shooting by the leftist James Hodgkinson, which nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise, had been classified as “domestic terrorism” targeting congressional Republicans. The bureau initially classified it as “suicide by cop.”
McCabe played a key role in the FBI’s flawed Trump-Russia investigation, including signing FISA surveillance that relied upon British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in October that the Justice Department stands by the findings of the DOJ watchdog that McCabe repeatedly lied to investigators during a leak investigation, despite the Biden DOJ reversing McCabe’s Trump-era firing.
