President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI knows firsthand what kind of abuses the once-respected law enforcement agency can inflict.
Back in the heady days of 2017, when the anti-Trump “Russia collusion” hoax was still gathering strength in Washington, D.C., Kash Patel was on the staff of the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, trying to get information about Hillary Clinton’s role in generating the idea that Trump was some kind of Russian asset.
And the FBI had its eye on him.
According to a Justice Department Inspector General’s report released this week, the FBI and the Justice Department obtained sweeping warrants to monitor communications of two members of Congress and 43 staffers, ostensibly to find out who was behind leaks to reporters.
Patel is not named in the IG report, but according to a CNN report published on Tuesday, Patel was one of those staffers.
And as RealClearInvestigations columnist Paul Sperry wrote in a piece published by the New York Post on Friday, the FBI had special reasons to want access to Patel’s communications.
“At the time, Patel was demanding to see FBI documents and depose FBI witnesses to find out if the bureau had abused its power in obtaining a FISA warrant to spy on Trump aide Carter Page,” Sperry wrote.
“As chief counsel, Patel had no idea that the subject of his investigation — the FBI — was collecting his data and increasing the visibility of witnesses he was communicating with, including whistleblowers,” he observed.
The IG report, and the reporting by CNN and Sperry, is a reminder of just how deeply the FBI has been involved in meddling in political questions and using its prestige and powers to do it.
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It’s also a reminder of why new leadership is needed at the top — and why Patel, a vocal critic of the FBI, is the man for the job.
In a September 2022 interview with The Western Journal, he was outspoken about the actions of the type of rogue operatives he calls “government gangsters.”
And there might not be any agency in the government more in need of a housecleaning than the FBI.
Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray, who announced his upcoming resignation the day the IG’s report was published, took over after Trump fired the now disgraced, and disgraceful, former FBI Director James Comey.
But in the interim, leadership of the bureau was in the hands of now-former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. (McCabe, now a CNN contributor, pretty much personifies the deep state swamp that despises Donald Trump.)
Wray won Senate confirmation to the FBI post in August 2017.
The warrants for surveillance of Patel and others — including, amusingly enough, Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff, according to CNN — were issued in September of that year.
According to the IG report, most of the warrants were renewed at least once, with some renewed for up to four years. Their terms prohibited major companies like Apple and Google from informing their customers about the government’s action.
Patel had no knowledge that he was under court-approved surveillance by the FBI until 2022, when Google finally was permitted to inform him, Sperry wrote.
At the time, according to Sperry, Patel said, “They must be held accountable or they’ll only abuse their power again.”
Patel made an attempt on his own to “hold them accountable” in September 2023 when he sued the FBI over the spying, but the lawsuit was dismissed in late September.
Americans might remember that something big happened in the country about six weeks after that — when Trump stormed to victory in the presidential election.
Now the president-elect has chosen Patel as his nominee to lead the FBI, and it’s stirred up a swell of resentment in the deep state. One of his loudest critics is Andrew McCabe, who told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in November that Patel could do “a lot of damage” to the FBI, according to The Hill.
Judging by the FBI’s actions in recent years, starting with its role in promulgating the “Russia collusion” hoax and its sometimes distorted priorities, that might not be such a bad thing.
The FBI has more than proven itself capable of abusing its powers, and abusing Americans, to suit its political purpose. And Kash Patel knows that firsthand.
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