Kash Patel is set to face questions during a bid to be the next FBI director about his history of fierce criticism of current and former federal officials, including a list of 60 people he has deemed members of the “Executive Branch Deep State” that critics have dubbed an enemies list.
The list appears in an appendix of Patel’s book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.” It includes people such as FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and President Joe Biden.
There are high-profile Democrats, Trump administration officials who have rejected his false 2020 election fraud claims and other administration officials who have since spoken out critically about his behind-the-scenes conduct.
Patel used the book to fume against what he called the “deep state,” a pejorative term for current and former federal officials, which he said was the “most dangerous threat to our democracy.”
“We are on a mission to annihilate the deep state,” Patel told a crowd in October at a Nevada rally featuring Trump.
GOP senators who have praised President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of Patel to run the FBI say he will bring the kind of sweeping change to an agency that many Republicans say has been “weaponized” against them.
But some critics have raised concerns that he will wield the sprawling investigative authority of the FBI to investigate and prosecute Trump’s enemies, if he’s confirmed. The president-elect, who flirted with authoritarian themes during his campaign, has called for the prosecution of perceived foes.
In the section of the book about overhauling the FBI, Patel wrote that the next president should fire the top ranks of the agency, and “all those who manipulated evidence, hid exculpatory information, or in any way abused their authority for political ends must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Former Homeland Security official Paul Rosenzweig, in a guest article on The Bulwark, pointed to several comments from Patel about prosecutions. “These are not the words of a neutral investigator,” Rosenzweig wrote. “Rather, they are stark evidence of a pre-disposition to prosecution and strong circumstantial evidence of vindictive intent.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee that would handle a Patel nomination, has said he’s open-minded about Patel leading the agency and expects him to be confirmed, but has questions about how Patel intends to shake up the agency.
Cornyn said he intends to ask him about the list Patel published in his book, among other issues. Cornyn said he wants the agency to move away from the legacy of former director James Comey, who Trump fired in his first administration and then appointed Wray.
“I want to talk to him about that, because, you know, we need to restore the FBI to a non-political institution. To me, that’s one of the worst travesties of the Comey period in the way he treated President Trump. So I’m interested in restoring the status quo before Comey, and so that’s what I intend to talk to him about,” Cornyn said.
Some Democrats have raised concerns. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a Judiciary Committee member who will be able to ask questions at a confirmation hearing, said Patel’s potential nomination “couldn’t be more dangerous because of the potential retribution against his adversaries, or so-called enemies.”
“To think that he might be head of the FBI is absolutely terrifying, and it should be for the American people,” Blumenthal said.
The list
Trump on Sunday said he isn’t thrilled with Wray, who is in the middle of a 10-year term as head of the agency. He would have to fire Wray, or Wray would have to resign, to have Patel take the role.
Patel is a former public defender, former federal prosecutor and former congressional staffer, according to a Defense Department biography. He has also worked at the Defense Department and the National Security Council, according to the biography.
During Patel’s time as a staff member on the House Intelligence Committee, he spearheaded an investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 campaign, according to a sheet on Patel put out by the Trump team.
Patel’s list includes Biden administration officials as well as first-term Trump officials who have been critical of Trump, such as former Attorney General William Barr; former national security adviser John Bolton; Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.
Esper, in an interview with CNN, said Patel’s comments raise questions about the politicization of the Justice Department and the FBI.
“It’s things that will — if he makes his way to a confirmation hearing — that I think will be top of mind for senators as they question him about, what does he mean by this when he talks about revenge or retribution,” Esper said.
In his memoir, Barr wrote that he told White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that Patel would get a role at the FBI “over my dead body.”
“Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency,” Barr wrote.
NBC News reported that Bolton, who after leaving office lambasted Trump’s fitness for the presidency, said Trump had picked Patel to be his Lavrentiy Beria, an infamous Stalin police chief, and said that the “Senate should reject [Patel’s] nomination 100-0.”
Andrew McCabe, the former acting FBI director who has been the subject of scorn by Trump, said in an interview with CNN that his main concern with the Patel pick is “what it says about Donald Trump’s intention for the FBI” and where Patel “might take the FBI if he’s confirmed as director.”
“And that all points in one direction, and that is back to the FBI’s regretful history of acting as essentially the enforcement arm for the president’s political activities,” McCabe said.
Patel, in the book, said the list was not exhaustive and did not include “other corrupt actors of the first order,” such as Adam B. Schiff, the California Democrat who will be a senator and able to vote on a Patel nomination.
Patel’s list also includes officials who served in less high-profile government roles during Trump’s first term, such as Stephen E. Boyd, who worked as an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department. He later went on to be chief of staff to Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.
Tuberville, in a video statement last week, said he would back Patel’s expected nomination, saying he’s “more than qualified” and has a “very impressive” resume.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work to right the ship, and Kash Patel is the right man for the job,” Tuberville said.
Boyd, in a statement, said one of his jobs at the Justice Department was to inform department leadership about the oversight interests of Congress and communicate back the views and decisions of the attorney general and deputy attorney general.
“I assume I’m named in that book simply because of that association,” Boyd said. “Based on firsthand experience, I support continued efforts to make smart reforms at the FBI and within DOJ.”
Senate reaction
So far, Patel’s book and his past comments do not appear to be stalling his bid for the job, with Republicans praising Patel or saying they’re open-minded about his nomination.
With the GOP set to have 53 seats in the chamber, it would take four Republican defections to sink a nomination along with all Democrats and independents.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., when asked about the list in Patel’s book, said: “I don’t believe that he’ll go after them.”
“We’ve got to restore trust,” Scott said. “What the DOJ has done, what the FBI has done, what Homeland Security has done, is they’ve ruined the trust of this country.”
Incoming Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said he was “aware” of the public reporting around Patel’s past statements but that he believes in the confirmation process.
Grassley praised nonspecific work Patel had done in the past to aid his oversight of the FBI and Justice Department.
“I think I’ve proven with my oversight of FBI that we need radical reform and we need more transparency,” Grassley said.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., did not weigh in directly on Patel’s list when asked about it last week, but praised his resume.
“I’ve sat down with Kash Patel multiple times. I know his heart. He’s a person of integrity. He’s a person that believes in truth and justice,” Marshall said.
Rep. Brendan F. Boyle, D-Pa., in a statement last week urged Biden to pardon people on Patel’s list before Trump retakes office, saying those individuals “shouldn’t have to live in fear of political retribution for doing what’s right.”
Boyle argued those on the list would be investigated and prosecuted under a new Trump administration, commenting it was “no hypothetical threat.”
“If we’re serious about stopping Trump’s authoritarian ambitions, we need to act decisively and use every tool at our disposal,” Boyle said. “Norms and traditions alone won’t stop him—Trump has shown time and again that he’s willing to ignore them to consolidate power and punish his opponents.”
Michael Macagnone contributed to this report.
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