Will FBI Director Kash Patel Be a Principled Reformer or a Trump Hatchet Man?
The newly confirmed head of the country's leading law enforcement agency has a history of advocating politically motivated investigations even while condemning them.
Before last fall's election, Kash Patel assured Donald Trump's supporters that the former and future president's enemies would get their comeuppance once he was back in power. Patel, a former federal prosecutor who held various national security positions during Trump's first term, said a second Trump administration would "come after" the "deep state" agents, including journalists as well as former federal officials, who supposedly had conspired to undermine democracy by opposing the president's agenda. Although Patel was hazy on exactly what crimes those people had committed, he promised to get them one way or another.
After Trump picked Patel to run the FBI, the nominee repudiated his threats of retaliation, presenting himself as a sober and conscientious public servant who would never take "retributive actions" or allow politics to affect decisions at the country's leading law enforcement agency. The Republican-controlled Senate, which narrowly confirmed Patel as FBI director on Thursday, evidently bought that transformation. Soon we will learn which Patel is running the FBI: the Trump hatchet man who served as a pugnacious proxy for his 2024 campaign or a principled reformer dedicated to justice and the rule of law.
Patel's public comments and published works provide plenty of reason to be skeptical of his new persona. In his podcast interviews, he comes across as a reckless partisan whose overriding concern is loyalty to Trump. That preeminent priority explains Patel's coziness with QAnon followers, whose manifestly loony beliefs he was willing to overlook because he saw their movement as an important part of the MAGA constituency. It also explains why Patel, even at his confirmation hearing, could not bring himself to acknowledge that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, conceding only that "Joe Biden's election was certified, he was sworn in, and he served as the president of the United States."
Patel's dedication to Trump pervades his children's books, which recount the travails of "King Donald," who defeats his evil enemies with the help of "a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer," an intrepid investigator "known far and wide as the one person who could discover anything about anything." The same basic narrative underlies Patel's 2023 book Government Gangsters, which describes a "deep state" conspiracy against Trump that Patel equates with a conspiracy to subvert democracy and the Constitution.
"The price of rule by the Deep State is high—nothing less than the end of self-government in America," Patel writes. "The Deep State is a cabal of unelected tyrants who think they should determine who the American people can and cannot elect as president, who think they get to decide what the president can and cannot do, and who believe they have the right to choose what the American people can and cannot know."
That book includes a list of 60 former executive branch officials who crossed Trump in one way or another, all of whom Patel identifies as members of this cabal. They range from Democrats such as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton to Trump appointees such as former Attorney General Bill Barr and former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. The list "is not exhaustive," Patel notes. "It does not, for example, include other corrupt actors of the first order such as Congressmen Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell." Nor does it include "the fake news media," which Patel also portrays as part of this conspiracy.
During his confirmation hearing, Patel implausibly insisted that his catalog of "corrupt actors" did not amount to an "enemies list," calling that a "mischaracterization." In case there was any doubt about his attitude toward those alleged malefactors, Patel clarified what he thought should happen to them during a December 2023 interview with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who asked Patel if he could promise there would be "serious prosecutions and accountability" for "these deep-staters" in a second Trump term.
Absolutely, Patel said: "We will go out and find the conspirators—not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're gonna come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're gonna come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out. But yeah, we're putting all of you on notice. And Steve, this is why they hate us. This is why we're tyrannical. This is why we're dictators. Because we're actually gonna use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have."
Forget all that, Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards," he said. "There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI, should I be confirmed as the FBI director….The only thing that will matter if I'm confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience to the Constitution and a singular standard of justice."
If you want to believe that, you could return to Government Gangsters and focus on the parts that raise legitimate questions about federal law enforcement and the criminal justice system. For example, Patel rightly criticizes the "narrative" that misleadingly portrayed the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol as an "insurrection," which he argues led to excessively harsh treatment of defendants who had committed "very low-level offenses."
Patel also highlights the threat to civil liberties posed by surveillance justified in the name of national security. He says applications for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act should always be vetted by the Justice Department instead of the FBI's general counsel.
Patel recommends "decisive reforms" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). He thinks FISC judges should serve longer terms so they have more experience in this area and are less apt to be hoodwinked by dishonest FBI agents or prosecutors. He also envisions "standing public defenders who act as advocates for the accused, picking apart the prosecution's case, demanding to see the source evidence, and confronting the prosecutor for any Brady violations where they willfully withhold exculpatory evidence." And he says it is "stunning" that "there is no court reporter at the FISC," meaning "nobody knows what was said during FISC proceedings."
The FBI "has gravely abused its power, threatening not only the rule of law, but the very foundations of self-government at the root of our democracy," Patel writes. As correctives, he recommends "extremely aggressive congressional oversight," reform of special counsel investigations, and moving FBI personnel out of the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters to avoid "institutional capture" and put agents "where they belong, in everyday America rooting out crime and securing our communities."
Patel warns that "a hyperpoliticized FBI" threatens "American freedom," noting that the agency has a long history of targeting people for political reasons. But his critique is so focused on the specific grievances of Trump and his allies that it is easy to lose sight of the fact that law enforcement abuses affect many ordinary people who become targets not because of their politics but because overzealous investigators and prosecutors are determined to throw the book at them based on sincere but mistaken notions of what justice requires.
On the face of it, putting a harsh FBI critic in charge of the agency is a welcome development. But this particular critic also has a history of advocating politically motivated investigations even while condemning them. The question is whether Patel can move beyond his Trump-centric critique of the FBI and apply his avowed principles consistently, which might require resisting the president's repeatedly expressed desire to punish his political opponents under the guise of enforcing the law. Patel's record as an embarrassingly obeisant Trump toady does not inspire much confidence on that score.
