Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, lacks the most important qualification for the post: loyalty to the rule of law rather than his boss.
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Whenever Donald Trump accuses others of doing something bad, you can be virtually certain that he is either doing that exact same thing already or is fantasizing about it.
One of the best examples of this is his claim that the justice system has been “weaponized” against him and other Republicans.
This was always just a ruse to make Americans believe that Trump’s various indictments (and his felony conviction) were part of a government plot and not the result of his own criminal behavior.
As is so often the case, reality tells a very different story.
For example, the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to indict Trump on one occasion (for the same crimes he was later convicted) and chose not to prosecute former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL); they did, however, indict President Joe Biden’s son as well as two senior Democrats in Congress.
In other words, if DOJ waged “lawfare” against Republicans, they were terrible at it.
However, if you want to find out what a weaponized Department of Justice looks like, stay tuned.
Enter Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
To understand how terrible he will be in that role, you just have to consider how excited various MAGA types were about the announcement.
Just look at what Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) had to say about it:
https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1863023059118018896
Republicans were downright giddy about the nomination, which might have been the first time that the supporters of one party were giddy about an FBI nominee.
They certainly weren’t last time around when Trump chose Christopher Wray to head the Bureau in 2017 (who will now have to be canned since his term doesn’t end until 2027).
The reason is simple: People aren’t supposed to be excited about the nominees for posts like FBI director or attorney general.
That’s because those are traditionally fairly apolitical — precisely because DOJ isn’t meant to be a political department.
That’s definitely going to change under Trump, as the Patel pick proves.
Supporters of the president-elect claim that the nominee is eminently qualified for the job. And a look at his résumé seems to lend some credibility to that claim.
Patel has worked as a public defender and a prosecutor, and he held senior positions on the National Security Council, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Pentagon.
However, he lacks the most critical qualification: any semblance of impartiality.
There is no reason to assume that Patel, a fervent 2020 election denier, will be more loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law than to Trump.
Last year, for example, he vowed to go after the president-elect’s perceived enemies.
“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” he told MAGA firebrand Steve Bannon. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
And that is precisely why he would be a terrible FBI director… and why MAGA types like Greene want to get the popcorn ready.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
