The Real Danger of Trump’s FBI Chief Nominee
Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI, is essential to the president-elect’s takeover, and will allow him to use the full force of the U.S. government against anyone Trump decides is an enemy.
On Saturday, Trump nominated Patel, a former chief of staff at the U.S. Defense Department, to replace the FBI’s current director Christopher Wray, who still has more than two years left in his 10-year term. Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after unceremoniously firing James Comey.
During an interview on MSNBC Saturday, The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols voiced his concerns about Trump’s “incredibly dangerous” prospective cabinet of sycophants, including Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, Pam Bondi, and now Patel—a champion of the president-elect, with his penchant for “deep state” conspiracy theories and making threats against the press.
To Nichols, Patel’s nomination demonstrates not only a direction for Trump’s second administration, but also an accelerating velocity.
“You have the makings of, you know, a not-so-slow motion authoritarian takeover of the United States government,” Nichols said.
Nichols: You have the makings of a not so slow motion authoritarian takeover of the United States government. And people ought to be really concerned about this. pic.twitter.com/c2wBI6xZSb
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 1, 2024
In a subsequent piece published Saturday in The Atlantic, Nichols wrote that Patel’s appointment was part of Trump’s plan to transform the FBI into an “excellent instrument of revenge against anyone Trump or Patel identifies as an internal enemy—which, in Trump’s world, is anyone who criticizes Donald Trump.”
Trump, having nominated loyalists to serve as the heads of his intelligence, legal, and law enforcement agencies, “eliminates important obstacles to his frequently expressed desires to use the armed forces, federal law-enforcement agents, intelligence professionals, and government lawyers as he chooses, unbounded by the law or the Constitution,” Nichols wrote.
By nominating Patel, and the rest of his motley crew of conspiracy theorists and alleged sexual predators, Trump is removing the guardrails on his second administration.