Senior figures in the Washington DC political establishment are sounding the alarm that Donald Trump’s new attempt to appoint MAGA loyalist Kash Patel as director of the FBI confirms plans to use federal agents to attack political enemies and ‘ retaliation’.
Among those making this choice is former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who himself was the target of Trump’s wrath when he was fired during 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.”
Wray said the measure “can only possibly be a plan to disrupt, dismantle, distract and potentially use the FBI as a tool for the president’s political agenda.”
He said it could take the agency back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, who told CNN: “The FBI has struck fear in the hearts of Americans across the spectrum, from politicians, people in entertainment, people in the civil rights community, because the director operated at the behest of presidents to gather political intelligence and leverage legal authorities , the investigative authorities of the FBI, to terrorize and intimidate Americans.”
‘So the question is: is that what we are going back to with this nomination? “I would say that Cash Patel would be the perfect person for Donald Trump to nominate if that is in fact his intention for the FBI,” he said. comments that went viral.
A CNN national security analyst said Juliette Kayyem, ‘The only reason Trump would have made this choice is because of his retaliatory campaign. There is virtually no other reason to explain this. Anyone who has followed this president-elect and who he wants to put in there knows that this specific position and this specific person are being chosen for what is essentially the campaign of retaliation.”
Amid the anger and panic, the White House and a senior Republican senator spoke to 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 director of the FBI, in what experts are calling part of a ‘retaliation campaign’
Wray has a 10-year term, so if you appoint an ultra-loyalist like Patel, you should fire him, just as Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey during his first term.
Republican Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said on Sunday that the president “will be given the benefit of the doubt in a nomination.”
He noted that Wray was nominated for a 10-year term – he was first appointed in 2017.
“I think the president picked a very good man to be director of the FBI when he did that in his first term. When we met him behind closed doors, I had no objection to the way he handled himself,” Rounds told ABC’s “This Week.”
“And again, the president has the right to make nominations, but normally they are for a 10-year term. We’ll see what his process is and whether he actually makes that nomination,” he said, referring to the “advice and consent role in confirming the nomination.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is defending the merits of an independent FBI amid fears that Trump would use the agency as part of his public call for “retaliation” against political enemies. But he did so while trying not to influence the nominations and praising the transition to the new administration.
“We inherited an FBI director who was effectively appointed by President Trump, Director Chris Wray, who has continued to serve in that role throughout the four years of the Biden administration, and has served with distinction, completely insulated from politics or the partisan preferences. of the current sitting president in 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 told Steve Bannon’s ‘War Room Pandemic’ podcast last year: ‘We’re going out to find the conspirators. Not only in the government, but also in the media. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminal or civil.”
Behind the nomination Sunday was Senator Bill Hagerty, the former ambassador to Japan under Trump. He said agents “conspired” to keep Trump out of office, and told NBC’s “Meet the Press” efforts to suppress reports about the Hunter Biden laptop allowed President Biden to “fool the American public .
“This whole office needs to be cleaned out. It doesn’t do its job. And if you look at what happened: the politicization that took place in 2016, when senior leaders of the FBI worked together and conspired to keep President Trump out of office, and when he came into power, they set up this fake Russia gate together. investigation that has hindered the Trump administration in its early years,” he said.
Hagerty then attributed Biden’s victory over Trump to the FBI and Big Tech. “Look at 2020. Look at what happened there with the fake, bogus Hunter Biden story that, you know, the FBI leadership worked with big tech companies to censor the Hunter Biden laptop, essentially putting President Biden could fool the American public and get into trouble. office,” he said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) called Patel a “very strong nominee” and told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he needed to come in and “clean out the corrupt partisans.” He said it was “no secret to anyone” that Wray would no longer serve as head of the FBI.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) took a more nuanced position. “Chris Wray has failed in the fundamental duties of the FBI Dir. He has shown contempt for the Cong’s oversight and has not kept his promises. Prove to Congress that he will reform and restore public confidence in the FBI,” he wrote.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, identified by Patel as part of the ‘deep state’, defends the merits of an independent FBI
FBI Director Chris Wray was nominated and confirmed by Trump in 2017 for an unexpired 10-year term
Trump described Patel as “a brilliant lawyer, researcher and ‘American First’ fighter”
Trump’s expected nomination will certainly cause a backlash in the Senate. When considering appointing Patel as FBI deputy director late in his first term, former AG Bill Barr said it would be done “over my dead body,” he wrote.
He said Patel had “virtually no experience” that would qualify him for the post, saying he was “shockingly disconnected from reality.”
Patel has accompanied Trump in his legal defenses, testified before a grand jury in the classified documents case, took on the Jan. 6 defendants’ case and wrote a children’s book “The Plot Against the King” that was an allegory about ‘deep state’. ‘villains.
In a sign of the confirmation battle to come, the Trump transition exploded Washington Times story quoting former FBI officials speaking highly of Patel.
Trump announced his choice on his social media platform on Saturday Truth Socialdescribing Patel as “a brilliant lawyer, researcher and ‘American First’ warrior.”
Patel had competed for the job with former FBI agent and Congressman Mike Rogers before Rogers was ousted as the candidate last week after being opposed by several MAGA Republicans in Trump’s inner circle.
In announcing Patel for the top intelligence community post, 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 critical role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, and stood as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote.
“Kash did a tremendous job during my first term, serving as Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Senior Director of Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.