A chilling statement by former President Donald Trump attacking the police officer who fatally shot Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt is obviously a “threat,” warned former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
In an interview on CNN Thursday, McCabe blasted Trump’s comments as “incredibly dangerous.”
“We know this for a fact. This isn’t something we’re theorizing about,” he added, noting the effect Trump’s “words have on his most diehard and emotional supporters.”
Trump said in a statement posted to Twitter by his paid aide Liz Harrington on Wednesday that “we know who he is,” referring to the unidentified officer who killed Babbitt.
He added: “The Radical Left haters cannot be allowed to get away with this. There must be justice!”
McCabe noted: “Let’s face it, when he says, ‘We know who you are,’ that’s a threat. That’s the same sort of language that a mob boss or a drug kingpin would use to threaten a subordinate. … So you have the former president of the United States threatening members of law enforcement. It’s just outrageous.”
Babbitt was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer as she climbed through a smashed window on Jan. 6 while lawmakers were being evacuated in the Capitol riot. A disturbing video of the mob outside the barrier Babbitt breached and Babbitt’s shooting can be seen here.
The officer was cleared of any charges in the death of the 35-year-old Air Force veteran and diehard Trump supporter. A number of lawmakers have hailed the police officer as a hero who saved lives that day.
Former Capitol Police Captain Terrence Gainer also said on CNN that he views Trump’s remarks as a threat to the officer.
“I do believe that officer is at risk, could be at risk, his family could be at risk if his name gets out in the way the [former] president is suggesting,” said Gainer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called Trump’s remarks about the officer “disgusting,” “vile” and “wholly unacceptable” on Thursday.
Trump’s chilling comment to his extremist followers comes just as the Department of Homeland Security is warning of an increased potential for violence due to Trump and his supporters’ baseless election fraud claims.
The DHS is seeing an increase in calls for “violence in response to the unsubstantiated claims of fraud related to the 2020 election fraud and the alleged ‘reinstatement’ of former President Trump,” a spokesperson told NBC News this week.
Trump is supposed to be banned from Twitter, but his paid aide posts all of his comments — often even before or if they appear anywhere else — on her Twitter account. Twitter has taken no action against Harrington, even though the company claims to have a policy against threats and against accounts brazenly posting messages from banned users.
Twitter ignored multiple requests from HuffPost to comment. Several Twitter users have reported Harrington’s reposted Trump comments to Twitter as both a threat and an obvious dodge of Twitter’s ban.
Check out McCabe’s full comments in the CNN video clip up top.
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