Senior figures in Washington, DC’s political establishment are raising the alarm that Donald Trump’s new push to install MAGA loyalist Kash Patel as FBI director confirms plans to use federal agents to target political enemies and carry out ” retaliation”.
Among those criticizing the choice is former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was a target of Trump’s ire when he was fired amid the Russia investigation. Patel has vowed to root out people he calls “government gangsters” and target members of the media in his war against what he calls “deep state” corruption.
McCabe said the move “can only be a plan to disrupt, dismantle, distract the FBI and possibly use it as a tool for the president’s political agenda.”
He said it could take the office back to the time of J. Edgar Hoover, when he told CNN the ‘The FBI struck fear into the hearts of Americans across the spectrum, politicians, people in entertainment, people in the civil rights community, because the director operated at the direction of presidents to gather intelligence. politics and use legal authorities, the investigative authorities of the FBI, to terrorize and intimidate Americans.
‘So the question is: where are we going back to with this nomination? “I would say that Kash Patel would be the perfect person for Donald Trump to nominate if that is, in fact, his intention for the FBI,” he said in comments that went viral.
CNN national security analyst said. Juliette Kayyem, ‘The only reason Trump would have made this choice is because of his retaliatory campaign. There is almost no other reason to explain this. Everyone who has followed this president-elect and who he wants to include knows that this particular position and this particular person are being chosen for what is essentially the retaliation campaign.’
Amid fury and panic, the White House and a top Republican senator spoke with FBI Director Chris Wray on Sunday, a day after Donald Trump announced his decision to try to install Patel at the top of the agency. .
President Donald Trump announced his intention to install MAGA loyalist Kash Patel as FBI director, in what experts call part of a “retaliation” campaign.
Kash Patel with conservative commentator Alexis Wilkins
Wray is serving a 10-year term, so bringing in an ultra-loyal like Patel would require firing him, just as Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey during his first term.
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said Sunday that the president “gets the benefit of the doubt on a nomination.”
He noted that Wray was nominated for a 10-year term; It was first named in 2017.
‘I think the president chose a very good man to be director of the FBI when he did so in his first term. When we met with him behind closed doors, I had no objection to the way he has behaved,” Rounds told ABC’s ‘This Week’.
“And again, the President has the right to make nominations, but normally they are for a 10-year period, we will see what his process is and if he actually makes that nomination,” he said, mentioning the Senate decision. The role of advice and consent in confirming the nomination.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan defends the merits of an independent FBI, amid fears that Trump will use the agency as part of his public call for “retaliation” against his political enemies. But he did so by trying not to comment on the nominations and by praising the transition to the new administration.
‘We inherited an FBI director who had actually been appointed by President Trump, Director Chris Wray, who continued to serve in that role throughout the four years of the Biden administration, and served with distinction, served completely isolated from politics or preferences partisan. of the current sitting president of the United States,” Sullivan told “This Week.
“This is a good, deep, bipartisan tradition that President Biden adhered to, and that’s really all I can say.”
Patel said last year on Steve Bannon’s ‘War Room Pandemic’ podcast: “We will go out and find the conspirators.” Not only in the government, but also in the media. We are going to pursue you either criminally or civilly.
Behind Sunday’s nomination was Senator Bill Hagerty, former ambassador to Japan during the Trump administration. He said the agents “conspired” to keep Trump out of office, and said NBC’s “Meet the Press” efforts to suppress reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop allowed President Biden to “mislead the American public.”
‘This entire agency needs to be cleaned up. He’s not doing his job. And if you look at what happened, the politicization that took place back in 2016, when senior FBI leaders collaborated and conspired to try to keep President Trump out of office, and when he took office, they put together this fake Russia-gate. investigation that hampered the Trump administration during the early years,” he said.
Hagerty then attributed Biden’s victory over Trump to the FBI and big tech companies. ‘Look at 2020. Look at what happened there with Hunter Biden’s false, false story that, you know, FBI leadership worked together with big tech companies to censor Hunter Biden’s laptop that allowed President Biden to basically cheat to the American public and enter the office,’ he said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) called Patel a “very strong candidate” and told CBS “Face the Nation” that he should come in and “clean up the corrupt partisans.” He said it was “no secret to anyone” that Wray would not continue as FBI chief.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) took a more nuanced position. “Chris Wray has failed in his fundamental duties as FBI Director. He has shown disdain for congressional oversight and has failed to deliver on his promises. It is time to chart a new course. 4 TRANSPARENCY + ACCOUNTABILITY at the FBI,” Grassley posted on X “Kash Patel must demonstrate to Congress that he will reform and restore public confidence in the FBI,” he wrote.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, identified by Patel as part of the “deep state,” defends the merits of an independent FBI.
FBI Director Chris Wray was nominated by Trump in 2017 and confirmed for a 10-year term that is not yet complete.
Trump described Patel as “a brilliant lawyer, investigator and fighter for ‘American First'”
Trump’s long-awaited nomination is sure to provoke negative reactions in the Senate. When considering naming Patel as FBI deputy director at the end of his first term, former Attorney General Bill Barr said it would happen “over my dead body,” he wrote.
He said Patel had “virtually no experience” that would qualify him for the position, and said he had a “shocking detachment from reality.”
Patel accompanied Trump during his legal defenses, testified before a grand jury in the classified documents case, took up the cause of the January 6 defendants, and wrote a children’s book ‘The Plot Against the King’ that was an allegory. about the ‘deep state’. ‘villains.
In a sign of the confirmation fight to come, Trump’s transition sparked a Washington Times story quoting former FBI officials who speak highly of Patel.
Triumph revealed his choice on Saturday on his social media platform Social Truthdescribing Patel as “a brilliant lawyer, investigator and fighter for “American First.”
Patel had been competing for the seat with former FBI agent and congressman Mike Rogers, before Rogers was dropped as a candidate last week after several MAGA Republicans in Trump’s orbit opposed him.
In announcing Patel for the top intelligence job, Trump praised the MAGA loyalist as a “fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people.”
“He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, defending truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote.
‘Kash did an incredible job during my first term, where he served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Senior Director of Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.