Associated Press
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Kash Patel to serve as FBI Director, turning to a fierce ally to upend America’s premier law enforcement agency and rid the government of perceived “conspirators.” It’s the latest bombshell Trump has thrown at the Washington establishment and a test for how far Senate Republicans will go in confirming his nominees.
“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Trump posted Saturday night on Truth Social. “Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.”
The selection is in keeping with Trump’s view that the government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries. It shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him.
Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday night.
It remains unclear whether Patel could be confirmed, even by a Republican-led Senate, though Trump has also raised the prospect of using recess appointments to push his selections through.
Patel would replace Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 but quickly fell out of favor with the President and his allies. Though the position carries a 10-year term, Wray’s removal was not unexpected given Trump’s long-running public criticism of him and the FBI, including after a search of his Florida’s property for classified documents and two investigations that resulted in his indictment.
He’s called for dramatically reducing the FBI’s footprint, a perspective that dramatically sets him apart from earlier directors who have sought additional resources for the bureau, and has suggested closing down the bureau’s headquarters in Washington and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state” — Trump’s pejorative catch-all for the federal bureaucracy.
And though the Justice Department in 2021 halted the practice of secretly seizing reporters’ phone records during leak investigation, Patel has said he intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters and change the law to make it easier to sue journalists.
During an interview with Steve Bannon last December, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media.”
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig Presidential Elections,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 Presidential Election in which Biden, the Democratic challenger, defeated Trump. “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
Trump also announced Saturday that he would nominate Sheriff Chad Chronister, the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, Florida, to serve as the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Chronister is another Florida Republican named to Trump’s administration. He has worked for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office since 1992 and became the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County 2017. He also worked closely with Trump’s choice for Attorney General, Pam Bondi.
Patel, the child of Indian immigrants and a former public defender, spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before catching the Trump administration’s attention as a staffer for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The panel’s then-Chair, Republican U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes of California, was a strong Trump ally who tasked Patel with running the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Patel ultimately helped author what became known as the “Nunes Memo,” a four-page report that detailed how it said the Justice Department had erred in obtaining a warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign volunteer. The memo’s release faced vehement opposition from Wray and the Justice Department, who warned that it would be reckless to disclose sensitive information.
A subsequent Inspector General report identified significant problems with FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation, but also found no evidence that the FBI had acted with partisan motives in conducting the probe and said there had been a legitimate basis to open the inquiry.
The Russia investigation fueled Patel’s suspicions of the FBI, the intelligence community and also the media, which he has called “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen.” Seizing on compliance errors in the FBI’s use of a spy program that officials say is vital for national security, Patel has accused the FBI of having “weaponized” its surveillance powers against innocent Americans.
Patel parlayed that work into influential administration roles on the National Security Council and later as Chief of Staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
He continued as a loyal Trump lieutenant even after he left office, accompanying the President-elect into court during his criminal trial in New York and asserting to reporters that Trump was the victim of a “constitutional circus.”
In addition to his 2023 memoir, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel has published two children’s books that lionize Trump. “The Plot Against the King” features a thinly veiled Hillary Clinton as the villain going after “King Donald,” while Kash, a wizard called the Distinguished Discoverer, exposes a nefarious plot.
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
18 comments
PeterH
November 30, 2024 at 9:19 pm
This opens America with a welcome mat to domestic and international terrorist!
Eliminate national security……let the MAGA trolls roll!
Red Storm
November 30, 2024 at 9:34 pm
Status quo is coming to an end for many DC fat cats. The voters have spoken.
George Greenfield
December 1, 2024 at 12:55 am
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A Day Without MAGA In Food Stamps
December 1, 2024 at 6:04 am
The DC judges are Trump circuit breakers Google Trump DC Courts
MarvinM
November 30, 2024 at 11:11 pm
Let’s try this again. Tried to post this 11:07EST 11/30/24
I wrote this already and it just disappeared. One might think the site is censoring opinions. Yet it lets many people write the most vile disgusting comments.
Kash Patel is unqualified for the post. If you want the FBI to do anything for you, Kash Patel will not help you.
He will task his department to go after any Trump enemies first, and if there’s any leftover, oh wait there won’t be.
So between that and DNI Tulsi Gabbard telling him lies from the Kremlin and DoD Secretary Pete “even my mom knows I’m an amoral a-hole” Hegseth, our country’s security is pretty much screwed.
This is the chaos you voted for if you voted for Trump. You own it.
Red Storm
December 1, 2024 at 5:41 am
I will own it and am thrilled that the most inept administration in a lifetime is on its way out, and the American people said no to four more years of this horrible administration.
A Day Without MAGA In Food Stamps
December 1, 2024 at 6:02 am
These crazies will not see the light
FLPatriot
December 2, 2024 at 10:08 am
Yoyr type want to rid the US of the FBI so there is no one left to investigate your rapes and pedophile friends.
ScienceBLVR
December 1, 2024 at 8:51 am
Mine disappeared, also.. maybe just a tech glitch or I’m more of a bada$$ than I thought!
cassandra was right
December 2, 2024 at 12:10 pm
You’re definitely a BADA$$ !!!
Ron Ogden
December 1, 2024 at 7:38 am
“. . .is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him.”
Good ol’ AP, toeing the lefty line, reliably prog as always.
Let’s try writing it this way: “. . .is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department experienced lawyers who will abandon the political lawfare that has characterized those agencies for years and has, ultimately, failed so conspicuously and that was rejected by the voters so resoundingly.” Yeah, that’s a little better.
Ocean Joe
December 1, 2024 at 8:33 am
Still trying to figure out what was wrong with various law enforcement agencies trying to hold Trump accountable the way any of us would have been for similar behavior. Yes, I know he’s gotten away with it all his life.
So it’s ok to call the secretary of state of Georgia to demand he find 11,780 votes.
It’s ok to use campaign funds to pay hush money to a whore.
It’s ok to stiff vendors so often he’s been involved in 4000 lawsuits (OK that’s civil despite the thievery it’s not a crime).
It’s ok to set up a phoney university.
It’s ok to blackmail a foreign leader by threatening to withhold aid unless dirt on his opponent is forthcoming.
It’s ok to summon and direct a mob to ransack the capitol, cause death and $2,000,000 in destruction because you lost an election but just cant admit it.
Best of all, Trump’s goons will be set free to punish those who tried to punish him. Maybe they can finally find evidence of fraud in the 2020 election despite the fact 60 federal courts could not (many of the judges being Trump appointees). In the meantime, his new administration appears to turn over much of his own responsibility to a handful of billionaires.
Looks like an exciting 4 years ahead. Revenge of the MAGAS!
"THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT", Earl Pitts American
December 1, 2024 at 8:56 am
Goot Morn ‘Ting Sage Patriots, Disgusting Dook 4 Brains Leftys, and Earl’s Besty Lefties,
This appointment of Patel, by The Sage Patriot, Donald (THE DONALD) Trump to lead the FBI, will go a long way in cleaning up that “SAD EXCUSE” of a law enforcement agency since way back in the Jim Comey days.
Most importantly under Trump and Patel’s Sage Oversight the FBI will return to it’s former trusted status as The Top Law Enforcement Agency on The Planet.
**But even more importantly**
Don (THE DONALD) Trump will be able to hand-off the cleaned up FBI in 2028 to Ron (THE RONALD) DeDantis and his lovely First Lady, Casey DeSantis, to keep our Great Nation safe for the DeSantis TWO TERMS in The White House and beyond.
Thank you, Sage Patriots, Disgusting Dook 4 Brains Leftys, and Earl’s Besty Lefties,
“THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT”, Earl Pitts American
*FREE BUMPER STICKER FOR YOUR SUBARU SUV* (FYI : “the favored leftist mode of transport”)*
*ANOTHER ONE OF EARL’S BESTY LEFTYS ON BOARD*
"THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT", Earl Pitts American
December 1, 2024 at 9:13 am
Goot Morn ‘Ting again America,
I, “THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT” Earl Pitts American, would just like to congragulate myself, “THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT” Earl Pitts American, for my “Ultra Knowledge-Drop” of Sage Wisdom (above) on our Great Nation.
Speaking objectivelly, the above post is “FRONT & CENTER” the greatest compilation of American Knowledge to be studied in all schools of our Great Nation for the next 1776 years.
Again I bestow all credits to myself, “THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT” Earl Pitts American
ScienceBLVR
December 1, 2024 at 9:00 am
Of Chad, you know who Trump is..Listen to John..
Here come old flat top
He come groovin’ up slowly
He got ju-ju eyeball
He one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker
He just do what he please…
…He say, “I know you, you know me”
Hold you in his armchair
You can feel his disease..
"THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT", Earl Pitts American
December 1, 2024 at 9:15 am
Hush Lefty, you are stepping on my Sage Wisdom.
“THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT” Earl Pitts American
PeterH
December 1, 2024 at 10:38 pm
At this juncture, Trump is scraping the bottom of the Republican cesspool of desperation. Talented and highly qualified potential candidates want nothing to do with a Trump administration.
Kash Patel will probably be sent to pasture. He was always an unlikely candidate. Trump likes floating people to see the reaction. He’s using Patel to see how many Republican Senators will stand behind his choice.
Anna
December 2, 2024 at 5:18 am
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Comments are closed.