Former agent unintentionally makes pitch for Kash Patel to run FBI: ‘Extremely dangerous’
President-elect Donald Trump’s
nominations so far have generated significant backlash from establishmentarians, confirming the picks’ strategic value as disruptors.
While Trump has yet to disclose who, if anyone, he wants to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray — whose term does not expire until 2027 — the old guard’s pre-emptive attacks on former National Security Council official Kash Patel signal that he might be the prospect most threatening to the dysfunctional status quo.
Senior officials at the highly politicized bureau are
preparing for a thorough housecleaning. Meanwhile, former FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner has gone to the liberal media with his concerns, blasting Patel as “dangerous” and insinuating that his housecleaning may prove to be more thorough than that executed by others.
When speaking to CNN’s Jessica Dean on Sunday, Brunner
parroted the talking points that have been recycled by others in Washington, D.C., in response to each of Trump’s appointment announcements: Patel is supposedly inexperienced, revenge-driven, and keen on littering a sacrosanct federal agency with pink slips.
‘He will conduct a massive amount of damage to the interior of the FBI.’
“It’s really important to understand that the person who is leading the FBI, who is the director and then the deputy director, those are two very important positions,” Brunner told Dean. “You’re in charge of tens of thousands of employees, both special agents, analysts, everyone that is enforcing the law, federal law that is on the books and supporting the Constitution of the United States. Putting someone like Kash Patel in the position of director of the FBI is, I believe, extremely, extremely dangerous.”
Brunner unwittingly continued his commercial for Patel, noting, “His resume isn’t traditional. There is nothing on his resume other than three years as a line U.S. attorney at the DOJ.”
Patel
previously served as chief of staff to former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller; as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council; principal deputy to the acting director of national intelligence; as national security adviser for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; as a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice; as a public defender; and as a hockey coach.
After downplaying Patel’s experience, Brunner highlighted what was apparently his greater concern:
He has clearly stated that he wants to exact revenge upon those that have investigated President Trump and those who have investigated those that are around him. He will conduct a massive amount of damage to the interior of the FBI … and employees who have put their names on certain documents because they were just working the case. There will be hundreds of employees who will be unjustly fired or have their security clearances removed only because he feels that it’s something he needs to do. So I think he’ll be very, very dangerous.
Elements of the liberal media appear to be singing the same tune.
The leftist blog New Republic
blasted Patel as an “intellectual lightweight,” warning that “if Trump installs Patel at the FBI, it would certainly further Trump and his MAGA allies’ goal of purging the federal workforce of disloyal employees.”
Another prospect, former
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), has not been subject to the kind of attacks that Patel has faced in recent days.
Semafor
reported that the “MAGA wing” of the Republican Party is keen to see Patel as FBI director, whereas “more conventional Republicans” are pushing for Rogers, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee who defended warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
“If they aren’t bloody, if they don’t have scars from one of the get Trump ‘scandals,’ then they’re for Rogers,” an unnamed source close to the transition team told Semafor.
“I am a big fan of Mike Rogers, and should there be an opening, he would be my choice,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R).
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, “Mike Rogers is a terrific guy. I don’t know Kash Patel.”
While Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Rogers “might be good,” he stressed that Patel would “be great.”
“Smart, knows a lot about law enforcement,” said Tuberville. “He’s loyal to the president. And those are pretty much the top requirements.”
Toward the end of his first term, Trump considered installing Patel as deputy director at the FBI or CIA,
reported the Associated Press. The plan fell apart when then-CIA Director Gina Haspel and former Attorney General Bill Barr made a stink.
In his book “Goverment Gangsters,” Patel called for an elimination of “government tyranny” within the FBI and the removal of anyone who “in any way abused their authority for political ends,”
reported ABC News.
“The FBI has become so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to the people unless drastic measures are taken,” wrote Patel.
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