MAGA Children’s Book Author Kash Patel Will Make FBI Trump’s Not-So-Secret Police
But at least we’ll have cheap eggs.
Kamala Harris didn’t actually run a campaign centered on identity politics with a platform that promised open borders and mandatory gender reassignment surgery for minors. However, Donald Trump did run a campaign focused primarily on retribution that openly promoted an authoritarian takeover of the US government. Although Trump rarely pays his debts, he is delivering on his campaign promises.
This weekend, Trump announced that he plans to nominate Kash Patel to serve as FBI director. CNN describes Patel as a “firebrand.” Reuters calls him a “loyalist.” The New York Times says he’s “bombastic,” but they’ve possibly confused him with Shaggy. The more accurate description is “henchman.”
Patel is a former prosecutor and public defender. He has little management or law enforcement experience. He’s never worked in the FBI. His primary qualification is that he agrees with Trump that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was a hoax and that there’s “corruption” within the FBI. He produced a book series for MAGA children of all ages, The Plot Against the King, which tells the story of mighty “King Donald” defeating enemies based on Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and James Comey. The only upside is an unhinged conspiracy theorist running the FBI will at least keep the X-Files division open.
Patel also runs a shady nonprofit that offers financial help to the families of people charged for attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6. (The Kash Foundation has spent more on promotion and advertising than on actual contributions to the insurrections, which is a damn shame.)
Two months ago, Patel said anyone involved in “Russiagate” should lose their security clearance. He’s proposed stripping clearance from anyone who defied the previous Trump administration, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan.
During Trump’s first annual impeachment for trying to shake down Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, Trump wanted Patel, then a backbencher in the National Security Council, to serve as his “political executioner” who’d screen White House aides for “loyalty.” It’s all very Soviet Union.
Isn’t there already an FBI director?
Trump appointed the current FBI Director Christopher Wray to a 10-year term in 2017 after he fired James Comey, who’d previously pursued such dangerous threats as Hillary Clinton and Martha Stewart. Trump isn’t a math whiz, but even he probably knows that Wray’s term isn’t up yet.
Normally, presidents don’t summarily terminate FBI directors so they can replace them with partisan cronies who are slavishly loyal to them. Of course, normally, presidents aren’t convicted felons and adjudicated rapists. As Chief Wiggum said, “You can even wear blue jeans to a Broadway show! Everything’s different now.”
Patel hasn’t hidden his intentions to turn the FBI into another blunt instrument for Trump’s wrath. Last December, on Steve Bannon’s podcast, he said, “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media. 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,” he said, like Thomas Cromwell before framing Ann Boleyn. “But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice. We’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”
Patel’s spokesperson Erica Knight attempted to sanewash his remarks, stating that Patel would only target journalists “who break the law, not just aimlessly prosecuting.” Patel added in a statement, “When President Trump takes office in 2025, we will prosecute anyone that broke the law.”
Obviously, MAGA’s definition of law breaking is highly subjective, considering that Trump has more felony indictments than scruples. Patel’s vowed to “end the weaponized, two tier system of justice,” which is how MAGA describes the DOJ and FBI investigating Trump’s actual crimes and not prosecuting Hillary Clinton for her email felonies and Joe Biden for governing while old.
Trump has said that Patel’s book, Government Gangsters, would serve as the “blueprint” for his next reign of terror. He called for a “comprehensive housecleaning” at the Justice Department, which will officially transition to a completely ironic name, like when a large man is called “Tiny.”
Patel’s manifesto promoted the eradication of so-called “government tyranny” within the FBI, which he’s said he’ll turn into a “deep state” museum on “day one.” He’ll fire “the top ranks” (most of whom will likely resign in disgust anyway). He’ll prosecute “to the fullest extent of the law” anyone who “in any way abused their authority for political ends.” In the Bizarro World that voters just empowered, anyone who attempted to hold Trump accountable for his ongoing abuses of power are the ones guilty of abusing power.
“[T]he FBI has become so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to the people unless drastic measures are taken,” Patel wrote in his Unabomber-inspired text. He warned that Democrats “should be very afraid.”
It’s amazing what voters will ignore when a carton of eggs is more than $3.
Patel’s so unfit, the Senate GOP will probably acquit
Many Democrats responded to the horrifying prospect of Kash Patel as FBI director with some weapons-grade hopium: He’s just too terrible for even Senate Republicans to confirm.
Drew Salicki posted on social media, “Thom Tillis who is one of the most vulnerable GOP senators up in 2026 is going to have decide whether or not to confirm an insane conspiracy theorist as FBI Director.”
Donald Trump just carried North Carolina for the third straight time. Tillis likely has more to fear from a MAGA primary challenge than the general election.
Jake Sherman suggested Patel’s nomination would result in “another bruising confirmation fight.” So far, we’ve seen no evidence that Patel has Matt Gaetz’s personal challenges. (Gaetz is a likely sex offender who most Republicans already loathed.)
Republican House Rep. Mike Lawler defended Patel’s nomination with some shameless gaslighting on CNN’s State of the Union.
“Our system of justice needs to be depoliticized, and unfortunately, under the Biden Administration, we have seen it weaponized, and it’s wrong.”
Lawler insists that Patel will simply “reform” the FBI without any weaponization, despite all the actual words he’s said.
“Look, I don't think the American people are interested in a revenge tour,” Lawler said. “But, obviously, if people did wrong in their official capacities, then that's something they should be concerned about. But if they didn't do anything wrong, if they upheld the law, then there shouldn't be a problem. The objective here, obviously, is to reform the Department of Justice and the FBI and get it back to its mission of going after criminals.”
Chuck Grassley, the 91-year-old incoming Senate Judiciary chair, has already expressed his support for Trump’s firing of Christopher Wray, who he claims has “failed” during his tenure. He said on social media that Patel “must prove to Congress” that he’ll do a better job than Wray, but we have reason to fear how the MAGA GOP defines a “better job.”
Sen. Bill Haggerty from Tennessee told Meet the Press’s Kristin Welker that Patel’s “probably the best at uncovering what’s happened to the FBI. I look forward to seeing him taking it apart.”
Republicans are likely to enable Patel’s overhaul of the FBI into Trump’s personal secret policy. If Americans wanted an actual check on Trump’s power, they wouldn’t have delivered to him every branch of government, including a Trumped-up Supreme Court.
This hits the nail on the head--all of this--promises of retribution, promises of "going after" career civil servants--was not just revealed during the campaign, Democrats raised the alarm over these promises and ran on opposing them. Voters decided this was fine, and there's no more copium of "he didn't win the popular vote" or "people didn't think he'd actually win so they didn't bother voting". Americans went into this with eyes open.
So Republicans are probably going to approve all of these picks, with the exception of candidates who threaten their own coalition (e.g., ones who are opposed by Big Agra or Big Pharma, or who have made a lot of GOP enemies). The idea that Republicans have anything to fear from swing voters or moderates is just outdated now--Dems took their shot, and whiffed. Now we reap the whirlwind.
It's not that Dems should give up and lay down--far from it--they need to re-examine how to fight effectively if they want a chance for a comeback at the next election, and make their message as effective as possible. But any hope that Republicans will be reined in by anything short of their own intra-party interests is just naive.
“The New York Times called him ‘bombastic’ although they may have been confusing him with Shaggy. The more accurate term is henchman.”
Thank you Stephen, protector and defender of the honour of Gen X.
The worst, most galling, thing for me is that holding the powerful to account became ‘partisan justice’. That this was tolerated as an argument by ‘serious people’ demonstrated how our press was unwilling or unable to deal with the dishonesty dished up by Trump.
That the question of a partisan Supreme Court defying ‘equal before law’ was not even raised. That ruling should have cost them their law degrees. The court cannot function as one arm of the Republican Party and do its job, it needed to have its credibility challenged.
The fact that the public is eagerly cheering on the prosecution of those who tried to hold power to account, to keep justice firmly in the hands of the rich and laws as only troubling the poor. (Racial dynamics, I’m sure helped white voters to shoot themselves in the dick like this.) It just - it just hurts.
To calm my nerves pre - election, I took to reading about industrial accidents. Most are caused by complacent workers taking risks believing there was an absolute fail safe they could fall back on if it went tits up.
The fail safe this election was the supposed sanity of the American voter. And like the folks of Chornobyl finding out that yes reactors can blow up, or Deepwater Horizon finding the ‘blind shear ram’ did not blindly shear’ we discovered our fail safe had a flat battery when we needed it the most.
But it should never have come down to there being just one barrier between us and the brink. VP Harris was running an election campaign while all democracies safety lights were blinking red.