Critics of President-elect Donald Trump candidate to lead the FBI has expressed doubts that he is qualified to lead the U.S. government’s main law enforcement agency.
Some are also concerned that Kash Patel, a fringe figure in Trump’s first administration known for his loyalty, aims to disband an apolitical federal security agency and turn it into a means of partisan revenge.
“Look, 99.9% of the bureau is made up of hard-working agents who adhere to the principles of honesty, courage and integrity,” said Jeff Lanza, a former FBI agent. “But he said he came to destroy the agency. How will it go well and how will that affect the morale of the agents who have to work under him?”
The FBI Director leads 37,000 employees across 55 field offices in the United States. They also oversee 350 satellite offices and more than 60 other foreign locations expected to cover nearly 200 countries.
Former FBI and Justice Department officials who spoke to the BBC said the job was difficult and nearly impossible for someone like Patel, who has limited management experience, to operate effectively.
Gregory Brower, a former FBI assistant director and deputy FBI general counsel who worked closely with the previous two directors, called the work “relentless.”
He told the BBC: “It’s relentless. It’s high stakes. It requires expert judgement, stamina, experience and a strong moral and ethical compass.”
In announcing his choice for FBI director, Trump called Patel “a brilliant lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ warrior who has spent his career exposing corruption, protecting Justice and Protection of the American People”.
Patel began his career as a federal public defender in Miami before working as a counterterrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice from 2014 to 2017. He then spent two years as a senior assistant for Republicans who lead the House Intelligence Committee, which is said to be fighting the investigation of Trump and Russian collusion in the 2016 election.
When Democrats took control of the House in 2019, he was hired as a staffer on Trump’s National Security Council. In February 2020, he became principal deputy in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — then headed by acting director Richard Grenell.
By November of that year, he had moved to the Pentagon to serve as chief of staff to Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller — a position he held until Trump left office two months later.
“Kash Patel has served in key national security positions across the government. He is not qualified to lead the FBI and would make a great Director,” Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, told the BBC.
Patel’s critics cite previous FBI directors, many of whom rose through the justice department or FBI over decades, as a better measure of the level of expertise needed to lead the agency. mandarin.
“It certainly doesn’t look like the background we’ve seen other directors of the FBI and those who oversee other important and similarly sized federal agencies bring to the table,” Brower said of Patel’s experience. for their work”.
Some point to former U.S. Attorney Bill Barr’s recollection in his 2022 memoir of Trump’s effort to place Patel in a senior FBI position during his first term to emphasize add this perspective.
“I strongly oppose the appointment of Patel as deputy director of the FBI. I told Mark Meadows it would happen ‘over my dead body,’” he wrote. “A person without a background as an agent will never be able to command the respect necessary to run the day-to-day operations of the office.”
Since leaving office, Patel has promised in interviews that, if Trump returns to power, he and others will use the government to go after political opponents — including politicians and members of the media whom he accused without evidence of helping overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election. .
“We will go after those in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden cheated in the presidential election.”
“We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminal or civil. We’re going to figure it out. But yeah, we’re going to notify all of you… We’re actually going to use Constitution to prosecute them for the crimes they committed.” say we are always guilty but never guilty.”
Trump said during his re-election campaign that he considered Patel’s book — titled Government Gangsters — a “blueprint” for his next administration.
In his memoir, which criticizes the so-called deep state, Patel calls for a “thorough cleanup” of the FBI by firing “the highest levels.”
On a recent podcast, he said the incoming Trump administration plans to keep about 50 members of the FBI in Washington and the remaining workforce will be placed in the field. In essence, they would “shut down that building,” he said, referring to FBI headquarters.
“Opened it the next day as a deep state museum,” he added.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Grenell and other former Trump administration officials who worked with Patel praised his nomination and considered him a hard-working public servant.
“I have no doubt that Kash Patel will inspire our frontline FBI agents who want to fight crime,” said Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security adviser. destroy gangs, capture spies and prison robbers, thugs, frauds and human traffickers.” on X
However, few people mentioned current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed after the then-president fired the agency’s last leader – James Comey – or that he still has three years left in his term.
Ultimately, it is up to the Senate to decide whether or not Patel’s nomination is confirmed.
While most senators remained relatively quiet about Patel and some Republicans praised the pick, there were clearly some skeptics.
Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, appeared to cast some doubt that he would get the necessary votes.
“I think the president picked a very good person to be FBI director when he did it in his first term,” Rounds told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
“We’ll see what his (Trump’s) process is and whether he actually makes that nomination,” Rounds said of Patel. “We still go through a process and that process includes advice and consent, which for the Senate sometimes means advice or consent.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat who will soon hand power to Republicans, emphasized that Trump knows Wray’s term is not yet over and urged his colleagues to block the confirmation. received by Patel.
“Now, the President-elect wants to replace his own appointee with an unqualified loyalist,” Durbin said in a statement. “The Senate should reject this unprecedented effort to weaponize the FBI for the campaign of revenge promised by Donald Trump.”
