Trump FBI nominee has a full 'enemies list' — Here’s who’s on it

03 December 2024

Since defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the United States' 2024 presidential election, President-elect Donald Trump has made one controversial administration pick after the next. The most recent is far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Kash Patel for FBI director — a pick that has drawn scathing criticism from both Democrats and Never Trump conservatives.

Patel has promoted the false, repeatedly debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. And in 2023, he has even called for criminal prosecutions of journalists who reported that President Joe Biden legitimately won.

The New Republic's Timonthy Noah, in a biting article published on December 3, warns that Patel, like Trump, has an "enemies list." And he notes some of the MAGA foes who are on it and could be targeted for retaliation if Patel is confirmed as FBI director and replaces Christopher Wray, who has held that position since 2017.

"Patel doesn't literally call his list, which appears as an appendix in (his 2022 book) 'Government Gangsters,' an enemies list," Noah explains. "More blandly, he calls it 'Members of the Executive Branch Deep State.' But 'deep state,' in the context of Trump World grievance, is no neutral term. In the book, Patel calls the deep state 'a cabal of unelected tyrants' and 'the most dangerous threat to our democracy.'"

Noah adds, "Consider also the book's title, and that in introducing the list, Patel apologizes for omitting 'other corrupt actors of the first order.' It's an enemies list."

Patel's "enemies list," according to Noah, ranges from former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

"More conventionally," Noah observes, "Patel includes on his enemies list the last three Democratic nominees for president: Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Former President Barack Obama, for some reason, is left off the list, even though Obama's chief of staff, John Podesta, is on it."

Read Timothy Noah's full article for The New Republic at this link.

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