Kash Patel, Trump's pick to lead FBI, appears to have support of GOP while alarming the left

President-elect Donald Trump’s late-Saturday announcement he will replace the current FBI Director with agency outsider Kash Patel was mostly met with signals of support from leading Republicans, while those at odds with the former president voiced concern over the Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s top law enforcement and counterterrorism agency.

Patel, a former national security prosecutor and public defender who served in several high-level positions during Trump’s first administration, has long spoken out against the “weaponization” of the Justice Department and their investigation and pursuit of charges against the former president. His appointment, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, is not in keeping with decades-old rules for the role, which is supposed to be shielded from politics.

“The FBI director is a unique player in the American government system,” Sullivan said during a Sunday appearance on NBC. “They’re appointed for ten-year terms, not terms just for the duration of a given president.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, served throughout the Biden administration, Sullivan noted, on account of a “longstanding norm that FBI directors serve out their full terms.”

“Joe Biden didn’t fire him. He relied upon him to execute his responsibilities as the director of the FBI, and allowed him to serve out the fullness of his term over the course of the Biden administration. So that’s how we approach things, and we would like to ensure that the FBI remains an independent institution, insulated from politics.” he said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who’s in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when the new congress convenes, said in a post on X that Patel, “must prove to Congress he will reform & restore public trust in FBI.”

Grassley also took a shot at Wray, who he said, “has failed at fundamental duties of FBI Dir.”

“He’s showed disdain for cong oversight & hasn’t lived up to his promises It’s time 2 chart a new course 4 TRANSPARENCY +ACCOUNTABILITY at FBI,” the senior Senator continued.

According to the Trump, Patel was picked because he’s “a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.”

“Kash did an incredible job during my First Term, where he served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council,” Trump wrote in his announcement.

The position is subject to Senate approval, and on Sunday some GOP lawmakers signaled they are ready to let the president move forward with his choice to reshape the agency.

“After years of horrible leadership and political witch hunts led by corrupt officials, Kash will reform the FBI into a nimble, efficient organization solely focused on national security,” Ohio’s incoming freshman U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno said.

Florida’s U.S. Sen. Rick Scott said that “the FBI has lost the trust of the American people and needs to be shaken up and driven back to its mission.”

“We must end the political witch-hunts, protect Americans and make sure President Trump can Make America Great Again! Kash will do just that,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican representing South Dakota, said that as far as he’s concerned there is nothing wrong with the current FBI director, but added the caveat that he understands Trump’s desire to appoint people he considers loyal to his agenda.

“I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds told ABC. If Trump does formally nominate Patel after he takes office in January, “then the president gets, you know, the benefit of the doubt on the nomination, but we still go through a process, and that process includes advice and consent,” Rounds said.

Connecticut’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said Patel’s nomination could be “damaging” to U.S. democracy. Trump, Murphy said, has promised to turn the nation’s top law enforcement agency into a tool of retribution to be leveraged against his political enemies, and Patel will be more than willing to help.

“He said that the greatest threat to America is the enemy within. And who he said was the enemy within was us, was journalists, were his political opponents. Kash Patel’s only qualification is because he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should serve to punish, lock up, and intimidate Donald Trump’s political opponents, and so the cost to the American public is pretty simple,” Murphy told NBC.

Connecticut’s U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, said in social media posts that the choice of Patel represents “another test of the Senate’s power of advice and consent.”

“Patel needs to prove to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he has the right qualifications and, despite his past statements, will put our nation’s public safety over a political agenda focused on retribution,” Coons said.

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who served as the 45th president’s third-but-not-last first term National Security Advisor, went so far as to say that Trump had found his own personal Lavrentiy Beria in nominating Patel, comparing the former prosecutor to a Stalin-era Soviet Union secret police chief infamously known for mass rape and murder.

“The Senate should reject this nomination 100 to 0,” Bolton said in a statement shared by NBC News.

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