Although FBI Director Christopher Wray was appointed to a ten-year term in 2017, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to fire him from that position in 2025. And the far-right MAGA loyalist Trump has in mind for that position is Kash Patel.
Patel's critics, including former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, have argued that Patel shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). And critics point to Patel's own words as proof of how extreme they consider him to be.
During a 2023 appearance on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast, Patel promoted the false, repeatedly debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and argued that journalists who said otherwise should face criminal prosecution.
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Patel told 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."
In a December 1 opinion column, the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus lays out some reasons why Patel is "particularly worrisome."
"It's important to understand that a new president picking the FBI director of his preference is not the norm — it is an aberration, and a dangerous one," Marcus warns. "Presidents are generally entitled to political appointees of their choosing, but the FBI director is supposed to be insulated from politics. That is one reason the director is appointed to a single 10-year term, spanning two administrations."
The Post columnist continues, " A president can fire the FBI director, but until Trump, that had happened only once, when President Bill Clinton removed William S. Sessions in 1993 over ethics lapses. The circumstances of that removal underscore its extraordinary nature: It occurred only after the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility concluded a lengthy report, released at the end of George H.W. Bush's presidency, and only after months of the new administration agonizing over how to deal with Sessions."
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Patel, Marcus argues, isn't Trump's only "worrisome" pick for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
"President-elect Donald Trump's choice of uber-loyalist Kash Patel to be FBI director is a hair-on-fire moment," Marcus stresses. "Trump is poised to install a team of toadies at the Justice Department — a flotilla of his criminal defense lawyers but most ominously an attorney general, Pam Bondi, who has vowed that 'the prosecutors will be prosecuted,' and now, with Patel, an FBI director who would add journalists to that list…. This is not normal."
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Ruth Marcus' full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required).