President-elect Donald Trump quickly responded to protests from supporters who believed he would choose Mike Rogers as FBI director.
Trump adviser and social media director Dan Scavino gave an update on the idea on his X account on Friday morning.
“I just talked to President Trump about Mike Rogers going to the FBI,” he wrote. ‘It’s not happening. In his own words: ‘I’ve never thought about it.’ That doesn’t happen.’
Rogers, a former FBI agent, congressman and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, ran unsuccessfully for senator of Michigan in November, but was rumored to be a candidate for the position after he meet with the Trump transition team at Mar-a-Lago.
Key MAGA figureheads began to protest the idea after learning more details about Rogers and his background in the intelligence community.
Old social media posts by Rogers resurfaced after he reportedly made the choice to lead the FBI when he concluded in 2017 that the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election, warning that this was a “clear and present danger to our democracy’.
Rogers also co-founded The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a group described by critics as a “deep state Never Trump” organization with former establishment national security advisers who created the Hamilton 68 project.
The controversial project targeted social media accounts as sources of Russian disinformation, even though many of them were journalists or American citizens.
Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers of Michigan speaks at an election night watch party,
Rogers also worked with former Director of National Intelligence Clapper at Harvard and previously praised his “professionalism” and “gravitas” at the agency.
Opposition to Rogers only increased after former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe endorsed the idea of him leading the law enforcement agency.
McCabe described Rogers in an interview on CNN as a “perfectly reasonable, logical choice” to lead the agency and warned that Trump would not choose MAGA loyalist Kash Patel.
“It is inconceivable to me that an outsider with no experience in the organization, no knowledge of the work and the scope of authority involved, could function adequately,” McCabe said.
That only fueled MAGA support for Patel, an unapologetic Trump loyalist who is giving some Republicans pause after serving in positions at the National Security Council and the Department of Defense during Trump’s first term.
Patel regularly expresses disdain for the “deep state” within the national security and intelligence establishment, promising to dramatically overhaul the agencies if Trump gains a position in either department.
Patel previewed his plan for the FBI in a recent podcast interview with Shawn Ryan.
“I would close the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state, and I would take the 7,000 employees who work in that building and send them all over America to chase criminals, Patel said. ‘Go be a police. You are police officers. Go become a police officer.’
As an aide to former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Patel won praise from Trump loyalists for combating persistent allegations that the campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
He quickly rose through the ranks of the Trump administration, starting as senior counterterrorism director at the National Security Council, to first deputy to the acting director of the Office of National Intelligence, and ultimately to principal deputy to the acting director of the department . of Defense.
Trump even planned to fire CIA Director Gina Haspel’s top deputy and replace him with Patel in the final weeks of his administration, but then-Vice President Mike Pence believed otherwise.