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Despite lacking FBI experience, Republicans rally around Kash Patel as director nominee.

Donald Trump’s drive to upend the FBI was welcomed by Republican Senators although it was not clear on Sunday how strongly members of the incoming majority party would embrace his move to install ally Kash Patel as the next director of the Justice Department’s top investigative arm.

Patel, a onetime national security prosecutor who is aligned with the president-elect’s rhetoric about a “deep state,” “must prove to Congress he will reform & restore public trust in FBI,” said Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, in line to be the Senate Judiciary Committee Chair when Republicans take control in January, in a post on X.

Patel lacks the high-level legal and management experience that FBI directors, including Robert Mueller, James Comey and Christopher Wray, who now holds that job, had before their nominations. It’s a 10-year term, and Trump named Wray in 2017 after firing Comey. So Trump’s announcement late Saturday means Wray must either resign or be fired after Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.

“Every President wants people that are loyal to themselves,” said Sen. Mike Round, a Republican from South Dakota, on ABC’s “This Week.” But he called Wray “a very good man” picked by Trump himself, and “I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now.”

A President has “the right to make nominations,” Rounds said, before noting the job is normally for 10 years, a length meant to insulate the FBI from the political influence of changing administrations.

“We’ll see what his process is, and whether he actually makes that nomination,” Rounds said. And then, if he does, just as with anybody nominated for one of these positions, the President gets the benefit of the doubt on the nomination once the President has nominated them. However, we still go through a process of providing advice and consent under the Constitution.

He added: “That can be sometimes advice, sometimes it is consent.”

Other Republicans who appeared on the Sunday news shows at the end of the Thanksgiving holiday and before returning to work this week were in Patel’s corner.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, said Patel “represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI. … The entire agency needs to be cleaned out.” He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “there are serious problems at the FBI. The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping change, and Kash Patel’s just the type of person to do it.”

He said Patel has “relevant experience” to head the FBI and “he’s the one that can see through the fix here.”

During Trump’s first term, Patel was an aide to the then-Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee before taking roles at the White House National Security Council and later at the Defense Department.

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 in a social media post.

Patel has called for a “comprehensive housecleaning” of government workers who are disloyal to Trump and has referred to journalists as traitors, promising to try to prosecute some reporters.

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 also 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.

Grassley said in his post that Wray “has failed at fundamental duties” and that it was time to “chart a new course 4 TRANSPARENCY +ACCOUNTABILITY at FBI.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said Patel was a “very strong nominee,” and he thought Patel would be confirmed.

“All of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI,” Cruz told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Democrats said they would oppose him.

“Patel’s only qualification is that he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should punish, lockup and intimidate Donald Trump’s political opponents,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, on NBC.

___

Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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13 comments

EARL PITTS AMERICAN
December 1, 2024 at 4:15 pm

Good evening Sage Patriots,
Please join me, Earl Pitts American, in rejoiceing at Donald ” THE DONALD” Trumps genius appointment of Patel to oversee the FBI.
Most importantly under Trump and Patel’s Sage Oversight the FBI will return to it’s former “GLORIOUS” 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) DeSantis and his lovely First Lady, The Increadably Beautiful Casey DeSantis, to keep our Great Nation safe for the DeSantis TWO TERMS in The White House and beyond.
Thank you,
“THE BIG VOICE ON THE RIGHT” EARL PITTS AMERICAN
- EARL PITTS AMERICAN
  December 1, 2024 at 4:32 pm
  
  America,
  Lets all relax our political sphincters as the worst 4 years under ANY past or future POTUS wind down durring this Blessed Holiday Season!!!
  THE BEST DAYS FOR AMERICA ARE AHEAD:
  Thank you, America, for re-electing Donald Trump!
  EARL PITTS AMERICAN
  - EARL PITTS AMERICAN
    December 1, 2024 at 4:50 pm
    
    And In Closing:
    PATOOEY ….. That, Sage Patriots, is the sound of me, EARL PITTS AMERICAN, spitting a “Yellow Snot” just getting over the flu, “LOOGIE” im the eye of Each And Every democrat opperative making decisions & policy for the “Lame-Brain” out-going Presidential Administration.
    Yellow Snot in you fool’s eye …..
    “Somone hold 8arak down” so I, EARL PITTS AMERICAN, can “Hock Up another Yellow Flu LOOGIE for 8arak’s other eye!!!
    Thank you America,
    EARL PITTS AMERICAN
    .
    - EARL PITTS AMERICAN
      December 1, 2024 at 4:53 pm
      
      PATOOEY ….. that was a juicy one America,
      EARL PITTS AMERICAN
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One of Earl's Besty Leftys
December 1, 2024 at 6:20 pm

Thanks Earl,
I followed your postings and you convinced me to vote Trump.
Now I feel so clean and healthy and hope to raise a normal American family
Thanks Earl you saved me from the brain rot of dook 4 brains leftism,
Jackson Cartwright
PeterH
December 1, 2024 at 10:27 pm

It is a Republican misnomer to believe that the president has some special privilege to surround himself with admirers he can work with.

If this was so, FBI directors would not be commissioned to serve for ten years and the Senate would not be tasked with voting approval for a candidate who the incoming administration has floated.

The head of the FBI is commissioned BECAUSE they are free of politics. Kash Patel is a Trump ring kisser and should and probably will be disqualified by the Senate.
Terry Feid
December 2, 2024 at 6:34 am

The reaction on the left shows they are terrified at an institutional level. Nobody gets this scared unless they think they are facing real liability themselves. They all say Patel has no ideology, and that his fault is his loyalty. Yet, they shrug over Biden’s putting family loyalty over the rule of law. And notice this: first Patel was nominated and second Biden signed Hunter’s pardon for crimes going back ten years, whether we know about them or not, which means, in other words, whether they have been covered up or not. High times ahead!
- PeterH
  December 2, 2024 at 10:52 am
  
  Highly qualified candidates have no interest in working in a Trump administration.
- cassandra was right
  December 3, 2024 at 10:38 pm
  
  YOU: “they shrug over Biden’s putting family loyalty over the rule of law.”
  Who is shrugging about Biden pardoning Hunter?
  And “rule of law”? Anyone who voted for a FELON ajudicated rapist who is surrounding himself with sexual assaulters, liars, and assorted criminals probably shouldn’t comment on “rule of law”.
  YOU: “first Patel was nominated and second Biden signed Hunter’s pardon for crimes going back ten years”
  Biden is traditional and stubborn. But seeing Patel had to have been the ‘final straw’. “Enough is enough” as Biden put it. Trump has selected Patel for revenge on his opponents. “10 years”? To stop the endless harassment. Hunter’s crimes are not even normally prosecuted as felonies. Ironically the gun charge is really just an infringement on Hunter’s Second Amendment Rights, right? Taxes? Next you’ll be calling for 80k agents! Biden needs to pardon Liz Cheney and everyone else Trump is threatening.
  If GOPs are suddenly concerned about pardons, Google how many criminals — family, friends, and others — Trump pardoned while president.
KathrynA
December 2, 2024 at 9:30 am

I so agree with PeterH. We should have the FBI and Justice Department working independently of the White House and qualified people should be working at the top and positions below; not someone with “an axe to grind” and no experience. So far, the nearest one with some qualifications I’ve seen nominated for any position are Pam Bondi and Chad Chronister. I’m not big fans of them, but at least they have experience in the fields they were nominated for.
A Day Without MAGA Hating Your Mother
December 2, 2024 at 12:22 pm

Pam Bondi is bleach blonde wannabe ,she floated election conspiracy theories,that the Justice department had to prosecute people,a prosecutor is not some rogue official,they has get the blessing of the court to gather information,I think Hunter Biden is guilty of showing poor judgement,a judge is the ultimate arbitrary of the facts Google Judges Oversight Of Prosecutor
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