Washington (AP) In an attempt to overthrow America’s top law enforcement organization and purge the government of alleged conspirators, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is a test of how far Senate Republicans will go to confirm Trump’s candidates and the most recent bombshell he has thrown at the Washington elite.
The choice is consistent with Trump’s professed desire for vengeance against alleged enemies and his belief that the government’s intelligence and law enforcement organizations need to undergo a major overhaul. It demonstrates how Trump, still enraged by the years of federal investigations that plagued his first administration and ultimately resulted in his indictment, is attempting to choose close loyalists to the Justice Department and FBI that he feels will shield him rather than investigate him.
“As an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution, Patel played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax,” Trump posted on social media Saturday night.
Days after Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original choice to head the Justice Department, withdrew his nomination facing heavy scrutiny over sex trafficking charges, Patel’s nomination sets up what is expected to be a contentious confirmation struggle in the Senate.
Even though Patel is not as well-known, his selection was nevertheless anticipated to be shocking. In addition to calling for a thorough purging of government employees who have betrayed Trump, he has embraced Trump’s rhetoric of a deep state, dubbed media traitors, and pledged to try to prosecute some reporters.
In the Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans next year, Trump’s nominations will have supporters, but confirmation of his choices remains uncertain. In the face of anticipated Democratic resistance, Republicans can only lose a small number of defectors due to their tiny majority; nevertheless, as vice president, JD Vance would have the power to break any tie votes.
However, the president-elect had also hinted at the possibility of using a congressional loophole that permits him to nominate people when the Senate is not in session to force his choices through without Senate approval.
Christopher Wray, who was nominated by Trump in 2017 but rapidly lost the support of the president and his supporters, will be replaced by Patel. The 10-year tenure of FBI directors is intended to shield them from political interference.
Trump’s long-standing public criticism of him and the FBI, especially in the wake of federal investigations and an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for secret papers two years ago that produced indictments that are now likely to be dropped, makes his removal not surprising.
Trump tried in vain to increase his authority over the intelligence establishment in his last months in office by proposing to appoint Patel as the deputy director of the FBI or CIA. Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, stated in his memoir that he informed Mark Meadows, the chief of staff at the time, that Patel would be appointed deputy director of the FBI over my corpse.
According to Barr, Patel lacked the experience necessary to hold a senior position in the world’s top law enforcement organization.
If implemented, Patel’s previous recommendations would result in radical change for an organization charged with both looking into federal law violations and defending the nation against threats like foreign espionage and terrorist attacks.
He has advocated for drastically cutting the agency’s footprint, which is a significant departure from previous directors who have pushed for more funding for the bureau. He has also proposed closing the bureau’s Washington headquarters and reopening it the following day as a museum of the deep state, which is Trump’s derogatory term for the federal bureaucracy.
Patel has stated that he plans to actively pursue government workers who leak information to media and amend the law to make it simpler to sue journalists, even though the Justice Department banned the practice of covertly acquiring reporters’ phone records during leak investigations in 2021.
Patel stated in an interview with Steve Bannon in December that he and others would go out and uncover the conspirators in the media as well as in the government.
In reference to the 2020 presidential election in which Biden, the Democratic opponent, defeated Trump, Patel stated, “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” We will pursue you, whether in a civil or criminal capacity. We will resolve that. However, you are all being placed on notice.
Additionally, Trump declared on Saturday that he will appoint Hillsborough County, Florida, Sheriff Chad Chronister, the county’s senior law enforcement official, to be the Drug Enforcement Agency’s administrator.
Another Republican from Florida appointed to Trump’s administration is Chronister. He became Hillsborough County’s top law enforcement official in 2017 after joining the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in 1992. Additionally, he collaborated closely with Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general nominee.
Patel, a former public defender and the child of Indian immigrants, worked for the Justice Department for a number of years before becoming a worker for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and attracting the attention of the Trump administration.
Patel was given the responsibility of leading the panel’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election by the panel’s then-chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who was a staunch supporter of Trump. In the end, Patel contributed to the writing of the four-page memo known as the Nunes Memo, which explained how the Justice Department had erred in securing a warrant to monitor a former Trump campaign worker. Wray and the Justice Department fiercely opposed the publishing of the letter, arguing that it would be irresponsible to reveal private information.
Significant issues with FBI monitoring during the Russia investigation were noted in a later inspector general report, which also found no proof that the FBI had acted partisanly in its investigation and stated that there had been a valid reason to launch the examination.
Patel, who has referred to the media as the most potent opponent the US has ever faced, became even more suspicious of the FBI, the intelligence community, and the Russia probe.Patel has accused the FBI of weaponizing its surveillance capabilities against innocent Americans, citing compliance failures in the agency’s use of a spy program described by officials as essential for national security.
Patel used that work to gain significant administrative positions on the National Security Council and, subsequently, as acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller’s chief of staff.
Even after leaving office, he remained a devoted Trump lieutenant, telling reporters that Trump was the victim of a constitutional circus and going to court with the president-elect during his criminal trial in New York.
Patel has been involved in Trump’s legal troubles since he left the government. Two years ago, he appeared before a federal grand jury that looked into Trump’s stockpiling of secret materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, for which he was later charged.
Presidents usually, but not always, keep the director they inherited. For example, President Joe Biden retained Wray despite the fact that Trump had appointed the director, and former President Barack Obama even asked Robert Mueller to stay on for an additional two years despite the fact that Mueller had been appointed by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.
During his first term, Trump publicly considered removing Wray because he disagreed with Wray’s focus on Russia’s election meddling threat while Trump was more interested in China. In contrast to Trump, who wants to label antifa, a catch-all name for leftist militants, a terror group, he defined it as an idea rather than an organization.
The understated Wray was committed to restoring stability to an organization that had been rocked by turmoil since James Comey was fired by Trump in May 2017 while the FBI looked into any connections between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Wray aimed to put some of the Comey scandals behind him. For example, the FBI suspended a deputy director under Comey who was a pivotal character in the investigation and dismissed a primary agent from the Russia investigation for sending disparaging text messages about Trump during the investigation. In order to stop some of the surveillance abuses that marred the Russia investigation, Wray also outlined dozens of corrective measures.
After Trump was the victim of three assassination attempts and an Iranian murder-for-hire plan that led to criminal charges being disclosed in November, the FBI has attempted to safeguard him this year.
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