Speaking with host Alex Witt, Frank Figliuzzi, who served as assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, claimed there is a strong possibility that almost half of the department’s employees could be forced out, thereby putting the nation’s security at extreme risk.

Imagine you were a hostile foreign power and you wanted to take down your competition once and for all. You might seek out a power-hungry public figure who cared more about themselves than their country, and who could be easily manipulated, blackmailed if necessary (so you’d want someone seedy), and offer them a personal reward if they dismantled their country’s government and public institutions and sabotaged its alliances and trade partnerships. If your hostile foreign power was also a socially backwards and racist, you might encourage their own racism and prejudices to punish mostly liberal LGBTQ+ people and kick out or imprison the low-paid immigrants who help the country function. It would be terrible if something like that were to happen in real life and the people were just to allow it.