NBC of Course
Trump nominates loyalist Kash Patel to serve as FBI director
Patel, who still must be confirmed by the Senate, has promoted the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that a secret “deep state” cabal tried to overthrow Trump.
President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday he would pick Kash Patel, a 44-year-old loyalist with little significant experience in federal law enforcement, to serve as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and “America First” fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People," Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social, arguing Patel would "bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI."
Patel, who will have to earn Senate confirmation to become FBI director, has earned a reputation as the ultimate Trump loyalist who has spread baseless "deep state" conspiracy theories and called for a purge of perceived Trump enemies in the FBI.
His nomination is likely to again put pressure on Senate Republicans who rejected Trump's nomination of Matt Gaetz, a firebrand Trump loyalist who was criminally investigates for sex trafficking, to serve as Attorney General earlier this month.
"It’s ridiculous. He’s arguably the least qualified person ever nominated for a senior position in federal law enforcement," said a former senior law enforcement official who interacted with Patel. "I don’t know anything significant that he achieved at the DOJ. He was not well regarded as a prosecutor."
Patel has promoted the falsehood that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump as well as the baseless conspiracy theory that federal bureaucrats in the “deep state” tried to overthrow the former president.
Patel, without citing any specific evidence, has called for replacing “anti-democratic” civil servants in law enforcement and intelligence with “patriots” who he says will work for the American people. In his memoir, "Government Gangsters," he described the current political moment as “a battle between the people and a corrupt ruling class."
“The Deep State is an unelected cabal of tyrants who think they should determine who Americans can and cannot elect as president," Patel wrote. "Who think they get to decide what the president can and cannot do, and who believe they have the right to choose what the American people can and cannot know.”
Former FBI and DOJ officials and Democratic lawmakers worry that a hard-line Trump firebrand like Patel could reshape the makeup and mission of the nation’s most powerful federal law enforcement agency.
Trump's nomination of Patel also flouts a post-Watergate norm that FBI Directors should serve ten-year terms. The goal of the practice is to ensure that the FBI is seen as apolitical and not serving the political interests of the president. The current FBI director, Christopher Wray, was scheduled to complete his ten-year term in 2027.
“Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats," the organization said in a statement. "Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for."
A former public defender who rose to increasingly senior national security posts in the final year of Trump’s first term, Patel gained favor with Trump as a congressional staffer during the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
He drafted a memo that accused the FBI of making mistakes in how it obtained a warrant to conduct surveillance of a former Trump campaign volunteer.
Many of the memo’s assertions were later disproven. An inspector general report found fault with the FBI’s surveillance during the Russia investigation, but also found no evidence that federal authorities had acted in a politically partisan way.
Patel went on to serve in Trump’s White House National Security Council, briefly as an adviser to the acting director of national intelligence and as chief of staff to Defense Secretary Chris Miller at the end of Trump’s first term.
During the closing months of Trump’s tenure, the former president proposed Patel to serve as the deputy CIA director or to take over the FBI. Then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, a career intelligence officer, threatened to resign if Patel was installed and the attorney general at the time, William Barr, vehemently objected. Trump ended up dropping his plans.
“Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency,” Barr later wrote in his memoir….
(Really long gossip fest)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-taps-kash-patel-fbi-director-rcna179736