WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s decide to run the FBI, Kash Patel, has mentioned he would wield the federal government as a weapon to “come after” Trump’s enemies.
Senate Republicans, who will determine whether or not Patel will get the job, say he wouldn’t truly do what he mentioned.
“Sometimes people make statements in a political context that on further reflection they say, ‘Well, that was basically for public consumption,’” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) advised HuffPost final week.
Patel beforehand labored on Capitol Hill as a Republican staffer and served within the first Trump administration, the place he earned a status as a Trump loyalist. Final yr, he printed a guide titled “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” which included an inventory of “deep state” authorities officers who opposed Trump.
Throughout an interview final December selling the guide with Trump ally Steve Bannon, Bannon mentioned he anticipated Patel to be named CIA director throughout Trump’s second time period, and Patel described his imaginative and prescient for vengeance towards Trump’s enemies.
“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in the government, but in the media,” Patel mentioned. “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, but yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
Patel has begun making the rounds on Capitol hill forward of the affirmation course of this yr. Republican senators already indicated they received’t help one in every of Trump’s different nominees, former congressman Matt Gaetz, and there’s no assure Patel can get 50 votes, both.
Cornyn mentioned he met with Patel and prompt Patel confirmed his view that he wouldn’t vindictively prosecute Trump’s enemies.
“I told him I thought the task ahead was to restore the FBI to its former reputation as a nonpartisan, no political institution, and he told me he agreed,” Cornyn mentioned. “I think there’s a difference between the hyperbole and the reality.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) advised HuffPost Patel advised him he would prosecute violent criminals.
“I don’t think you’re going to see the FBI going after journalists,” Hawley mentioned.
Mark Schiefelbein by way of Related Press
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) additionally mentioned he didn’t count on partisan prosecutions from the second Trump administration.
“He didn’t do it the first time. He’s not gonna do it this time,” Scott mentioned. (Trump truly did press for prosecutions of his enemies throughout his first time period, comparable to by publicly musing there needs to be probes of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and he additionally pushed for a felony investigation right into a earlier investigation of his 2016 marketing campaign.)
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) mentioned he was skeptical of the descriptions of Patel vowing prosecutions earlier than he was nominated and that he would ask him in regards to the stories.
“Everything I read on the internet’s not always true,” Lankford mentioned. “I’ll take the opportunity to ask him what his thoughts are.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) mentioned if Patel didn’t truly imply what he mentioned earlier than, then that presents one other drawback.
“If he’s not gonna do the things that he said he was going to do previously, how do we believe what he’s going to tell us now?”
In a February interview with NBCNews, Patel claimed his phrases had been taken out of context. Nonetheless, he mentioned there needs to be “some form of accountability” for journalists supposedly coordinating with authorities officers to place out a false narrative about Donald Trump.
Republican senators usually appeared to agree that the Justice Division had been “weaponized” underneath President Joe Biden to focus on Trump, who confronted two federal prosecutions for his try to undo the 2020 presidential election and for hoarding secret paperwork after he left workplace.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned it was “tendentious” to explain the listing of “deep state” names in Patel’s guide as an “enemies list,” however that Patel truly would do what he mentioned.
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“If you look at the weeping and gnashing of teeth, both from Democrats and from the corporate media about Kash Patel, it’s not that he’s going to be ineffective, but it is rather that they believe he’ll do exactly what he said he would do, which is root out that weaponization and politicization,” Cruz mentioned.
