William Webster, the only person to ever serve as director of both the FBI and the CIA, is warning that America’s “rule of law” is being threatened by the very people “whose job it should be to protect them.” In an opinion piece published by The New York Times on Monday, Webster—who served as FBI director from 1978 to 1987 and CIA director from 1987 to 1991—called the rule of law “the bedrock of American democracy, the principle that protects every American from the abuse of monarchs, despots and tyrants,” adding that the attacks on the FBI by President Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who he described as his “longtime friend,” are “troubling in the extreme.” Webster, who is 95, wrote that Trump’s assailing of FBI professionals as “scum” is a “slur against people who risk their lives to keep us safe.” 

Webster also said he is “profoundly disappointed” in Rudy Giuliani, another “longtime, respected friend,” because of his involvement in the pressure campaign on Ukraine to dig up dirt on Trump’s political rivals and spread a discredited theory that the country interfered in the 2016 presidential election, not Russia. He further called for the restoration of “the proper place of the Department of Justice and the FBI as bulwarks of law and order in America.”