Critics of President-elect Donald Trump A nominee to lead the FBI He has expressed doubts that he is qualified to lead the US government’s premier law enforcement agency.
Some have raised fears that Kash Patel, known for his loyalty to Trump in his first administration, is aiming to dismantle the apolitical federal security service and reshape it as a tool for partisan retribution.
“Look, 99.9% of the bureau is made up of hard-working agents committed to the principles of loyalty, bravery and integrity,” said former FBI agent Jeff Lanza. “But he said he was coming to destroy the agency. How does that go well and how does that play into the morale of the agents working under him?”
The FBI director leads 37,000 employees in 55 US field offices. They are expected to have 350 satellite offices and more than 60 foreign locations covering nearly 200 countries.
Former FBI and Justice Department officials who spoke to the BBC said the job was difficult and impossible for someone like Patel, who had limited management experience, to operate effectively.
Gregory Brower, a former FBI assistant director and deputy general counsel who worked closely with the previous two directors, called the work “nonstop.”
“It’s relentless. It’s high stakes. It requires expert judgement, stamina, experience and a strong moral and ethical compass,” he told the BBC.
When he announced his pick for FBI director, Trump called Patel a “fantastic lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people.”
Patel began his career as a federal public defender in Miami before working as a terrorism prosecutor at the Justice Department between 2014 and 2017. He later spent two years as a senior aide to Republicans leading the House Intelligence Committee, reportedly fighting Trump’s investigation. and the Russian Federation in the 2016 election.
When Democrats took control of the House in 2019, he was appointed to staff 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 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’s qualified to lead the FBI and will be a fantastic director,” Trump transition spokesman Alex Pfeiffer told the BBC.
Patel’s critics cite previous FBI directors, many of whom worked their way up through the Justice Department or the FBI for decades, as a good measure of the qualifications needed to lead the agency.
“It’s certainly not like the backgrounds we’ve seen other directors of the FBI and others who have overseen similar-sized and important federal agencies bring to their jobs,” Brower said of Patel’s experience.
Some pointed to the memory of former US Attorney General Bill Barr in his 2022 memoir of Trump’s attempt to keep Patel in a senior FBI position during his first term.
“I categorically opposed making Patel the deputy FBI director. I told Mark Meadows it would happen ‘over my dead body,'” he wrote. “Someone with no background as an agent would not be able to command the respect necessary to run the bureau’s day-to-day operations.”
Since leaving office, Patel has promised in interviews that if Trump returns to office, he and others will use the government to go after political opponents — including politicians and members of the media who have been accused of helping to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election without evidence. .
“We’re going to come after people in the media who lied about the American people, who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election,” Patel told Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief White House strategist during Trump’s first term, on the War Room podcast.
“We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminal or civil. We’ll figure it out. But yes, we’ll put you all on notice…we’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for their crimes. We’ve always said we’re guilty but never done.
During his re-election campaign Trump said he considered Patel’s book – Government Gangsters – a “blueprint” for his next administration.
In a memoir critical of the so-called deep state, Patel called for a “thorough house cleaning” of the FBI by firing the “top ranks.”
In a recent podcast, the incoming Trump administration said it intended to retain about 50 members of the FBI’s Washington staff and that the rest of the workforce would be fielded. They basically, “shut that building down,” he said, referring to FBI headquarters.
“The next day open it as a museum to the deep state,” he said.
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 characterized him as a hard-working public servant.
“I have no doubt that Kash Patel will inspire our line FBI agents who want to fight crime, destroy cartels, capture spies and jail robbers, thugs, crooks and smugglers,” said Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security adviser. In X
However, some have cited current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump after the then president fired the agency’s last leader — James Comey — or has three years left on his term.
Ultimately, it will be up to the Senate to vote on whether Patel’s nomination will be confirmed.
While most senators were relatively quiet about Patel and some Republicans applauded the choice, there was some apparent skepticism.
Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, raised doubts that he would get the necessary votes.
“I think the president picked the best person to be director of the FBI 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 the process, and that process includes advice and consent, which sometimes means advice or consent to the Senate.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat who will soon hand his mantle to Republicans, said Trump knew Wray’s term was far from over and called on his colleagues to block Patel’s confirmation.
“Now, the president-elect wants to replace his own appointees with unqualified loyalists,” Durbin said in a statement. “The Senate must reject this unprecedented attempt to arm the FBI for the retaliatory campaign promised by Donald Trump.”
