Trump’s FBI nominee’s qualifications face criticism

Criticism of President-elect Donald Trump nominated to head the FBI have expressed doubts that he is qualified to lead the US government’s top law enforcement agency.

Some also raised fears that Kash Patel, a fringe figure in the first Trump administration known for his loyalty, is seeking to dismantle an apolitical federal security service and transform it into a vehicle for partisan retribution.

“Look, 99.9 percent of the bureau is made up of hard-working agents who adhere to the principles of loyalty, bravery and integrity,” said Jeff Lanza, a former FBI agent. “But he’s said he’s coming just to decimate the agency. How’s that going to go well and how will that affect the morale of the officers who have to work under him?”

The FBI director directs 37,000 employees in 55 field offices across the United States. They also oversee 350 satellite offices and more than 60 other overseas locations expected to cover nearly 200 countries.

Former FBI and Justice Department officials who spoke to the BBC said the job is difficult and it would be nearly impossible for someone like Patel, who has limited management experience, to function effectively.

Gregory Brower, a former FBI assistant director and deputy general counsel who worked closely with the last two directors, called the work “nonstop.”

“It’s relentless. It’s high stakes. It requires expert judgement, stamina, experience and a strong ethical and moral compass,” he told the BBC.

In announcing his pick for FBI director, Trump said Patel was “a brilliant attorney, investigator and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the Northern people -American”.

Patel began his career as a federal public defender in Miami before working as a terrorism prosecutor at the Justice Department from 2014 to 2017. He then spent two years as a senior aide to the Republicans who led the House Committee on House intelligence reportedly fighting Trump probe. and Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

When Democrats took control of the House in 2019, he was hired as a staff member of Trump’s National Security Council. In February 2020, he became the principal deputy in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, then led by Acting Director Richard Grenell.

In November of that year, he had moved to the Pentagon to serve as acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller’s chief of staff, a position he held until Trump left office two months later.

“Kash Patel has held key national security positions across the government. He is more than qualified to lead the FBI and will be a fantastic director,” Alex Pfeiffer, Trump’s transition spokesman, told the BBC.

Patel’s critics cite former FBI directors, many of whom worked for the Justice Department or the FBI for decades, as a better gauge of the qualifications needed to lead the agency.

“It’s certainly not like the background that we’ve seen other FBI directors and those who have overseen other major federal agencies of similar size bring to their jobs,” Brower said of Patel’s experience.

Some pointed to former US Attorney General Bill Barr’s recollection in his 2022 memoir of Trump’s attempt to place Patel in a top FBI post in his first term to further emphasize the point.

“I was adamantly opposed to making Patel the deputy director of the FBI. I told Mark Meadows it would happen ‘on my dead body,'” he wrote. “Someone with no background as an agent could never command the respect necessary to execute the daily operations of the office.”

Since leaving office, Patel has vowed in interviews that if Trump is returned to office, he and others will use the government to go after political opponents, including politicians and members of the media who he claims, without evidence, helped nullify the results of the 2020 United States presidential election. .

“We’re going after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election,” Patel told Steve Bannon, the White House’s first-term chief strategist. Trump, on the War Room podcast.

“We’re going to pursue you, whether it’s criminal or civil. We’ll understand. But yes, we’ll put you all on notice… In fact, we’ll use the Constitution to prosecute them for the crimes that they said we’ve always been guilty of, but we never did.”

Trump said during his re-election campaign that he considers Patel’s book, titled Government Gangsters, to be a “blueprint” for his next administration.

In the memoir, which criticizes the so-called deep state, Patel calls for a “comprehensive purge” of the FBI by firing “the top ranks.”

In a recent podcast, he said the incoming Trump administration intends to retain about 50 FBI staff in Washington and that the remaining workforce would be put into the field. In essence, they would “close that building down,” he said, referring to FBI headquarters.

“Open it the next day as a museum in the deep state,” he added.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

Grenell and other former Trump administration officials who worked with Patel have praised his nomination and characterized him as a hard-working public servant.

“I have no doubt that Kash Patel will inspire our FBI agents who want to fight crime, destroy cartels, capture spies and incarcerate mobsters, thugs, con artists and traffickers,” said Robert O’Brien, the latest Trump’s national security adviser. to X

Few, however, mentioned current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump after the then-president fired the agency’s last leader, James Comey, or that he still has three years left of mandate

Ultimately, it’s up to the Senate to vote on whether to confirm Patel’s nomination.

While most senators have remained relatively quiet about Patel and a few Republicans have praised the choice, there is some apparent skepticism.

Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, appeared to have some doubts that he would receive the necessary votes.

“I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did it in his first term,” Rounds said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.

“We’ll see what his (Trump’s) process is and if he actually makes that nomination,” Rounds said of Patel. “We still go through a process, and that process includes advice and consent, which, for the Senate, means advice or consent sometimes.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat who will soon hand over his gavel to Republicans, stressed that Trump knows Wray’s term has not yet expired and called on his colleagues to block Patel’s confirmation .

“Now, the president-elect wants to replace his own appointee with an unqualified loyalist,” Durbin said in a statement. “The Senate should reject this unprecedented effort to arm the FBI for the campaign of retribution that Donald Trump has promised.”