Ex-FBI official raises alarm over nominee rooting through Trump files seeking informants

In a recent interview, a former FBI assistant director waved the red flag about the almost unchecked power Donald Trump's pick to be the next director of the FBI will have to subvert investigations and go around the Department of Justice on a whim.

According to a report from the Guardian, Frank Figliuzzi explained there is a real concern within the department that a confirmed Kash Patel would demand everything the FBI has on Donald Trump over the years and pore over every word looking for confidential informants who have worked with investigators.

While appearing on the Highly Conflicted podcast with the Guardian's Hugo Lowell, the ex-FBI official explained, "I don’t think people truly realize how powerful an FBI director can be, unrestrained. You want to open a case and call it a threat assessment or a preliminary investigation, you can do it."

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Worse still, he elaborated, "If the FBI director wants to get a press conference together, not tell the DoJ, and make pronouncements to the public about a case opening or a case closing or someone should be prosecuted, they can do it."

Then there is the matter of FBI files on the president-elect that would be ripe for Patel and his close associates to read and report back to the incoming president.

“And then going through files?" he asked rhetorically. "I imagine on the first day in office, he’s going to say, ‘I need every file that has the word Trump in it.' That should be a real concern, that Kash Patel is going through informant files and saying, ‘Look at that, this guy coughed it up on Trump.’”

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