One former senior-level official within the FBI is sounding the alarm about how much power Kash Patel — President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Bureau — could wield if confirmed by the Senate.
Former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi recently said on a podcast that Patel would be able to wield immense power almost from the moment he's confirmed.
According to the Guardian, Figliuzzi is warning that there would be little in Patel's way from carrying out politically motivated investigations aimed at Trump's enemies and marshaling the Bureau's resources to make life difficult for the president-elect's political opposition.
“I don’t think people truly realize how powerful an FBI director can be, unrestrained,” Figliuzzi recently said on an episode of the Highly Conflicted podcast. “You want to open a case and call it a threat assessment or a preliminary investigation, you can do it."
READ MORE: Trump FBI nominee has a full 'enemies list' — here's who's on it
Patel hasn't drawn nearly the same amount of controversy as some of Trump's other Cabinet picks, like Department of Health and Human Services secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth, who Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Defense. But Figliuzzi told Highly Conflicted that Patel will have vast influence within the Department of Justice — particularly when it comes to hounding those on his "executive branch deep state" list.
“If the FBI director wants to get a press conference together, not tell the DoJ, and make pronouncements to the public about a case opening or a case closing or someone should be prosecuted, they can do it," Figliuzzi said. “And then going through files? I imagine on the first day in office, he’s going to say, ‘I need every file that has the word Trump in it.
“That should be a real concern, that Kash Patel is going through informant files and saying, ‘Look at that, this guy coughed it up on Trump,'" he added.
Figliuzzi also pointed out that if confirmed, Patel would be in a position to influence the outcome of FBI investigations to Trump's liking. He reminded listeners that current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, made sure the Bureau's 2018 investigation into then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh went nowhere.
READ MORE: Leads about Kavanaugh were 'forwarded directly to the White House and never probed': report
“Agents know how to do a background investigation,” Figliuzzi said, “but once it gets to headquarters, can it be manipulated by somebody like Kash Patel? You bet. What gets to his desk and what gets to the Oval Office might be two very different things."
“When there’s a reinvestigation, that would apply to anybody who’s already had a federal background [investigation] done for their position. And guess what? Those are different," he continued. "The White House dictates the parameters of a reinvestigation, which is permitted.”
Normally FBI directors serve a 10-year statutory term, which is meant to make the position less political by stretching it across more than one presidency. Wray, however, recently announced he was leaving the office more than two years before his term was set to expire, greasing the skids for Patel.
Click here to read the Guardian's article in full.
READ MORE: 'Obeying in advance': Wray accused of 'making things easy for Trump' by abruptly resigning