More than any other personnel decision former President Donald Trump, the president-elect now, has made for his incoming administration, his decision to pick attorney Kash Patel to lead the FBI as the bureau’s next director has electrified Trump’s most ardent supporters.
That’s not to say his supporters are unhappy with any of the other selections–they’re not.
Trump’s supporters are very fired up about all of them so far, and excited as the former president builds out his comeback administration. But there’s something about the Patel selection that has really got the base jacked up and excited.
The raw energy with this selection may be because Patel is viewed as one of the movement’s most aggressive fighters–he was critical in the effort to undercut in Trump’s first term the Russia hoax against the then-president and then later led counterterrorism efforts in the White House–but it’s perhaps even more because of the distrust American conservatives have in the FBI over the past several years that finding someone who just will not appease the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency’s bad actors and will aim to steer the bureau back towards actually enforcing the law and away from political witch hunting.
Several of the top moments of the last decade in these internecine major fights that have defined the Trump era in U.S. politics–from the email scandal that plagued Trump’s 2016 Democrat opponent former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Russia hoax after Trump’s first win to the post-2020 election January 6 prosecutions to the raid of Mar-a-Lago over the documents case and many, many more–have seen the FBI at the center of them all. Trump’s decision in his first term to fire James Comey as FBI director and appoint Christopher Wray was a hugely monumental decision.
Wray has panned out to be just as protective of the institutional interests of the FBI as anyone else in the “deep state,” a massive disappointment for Trump’s faithful.
The beauty of this incoming second Trump term, though, is it’s a second chance not just for Trump himself but also for the broader America First movement. Second chances in American politics are very rare, if not non-existent, so this precious opportunity for the former and soon-to-be-reinstated President of the United States represents a historic shot at real change–an effort to get it right this time–and actually reform the agency.
What’s more, Patel is a uniquely qualified person to win confirmation and actually lead the FBI. That’s maybe part of why the MAGA–Make America Great Again–faithful are so fired up here. In the first term, Trump did not have a bevy of individuals with the qualifications to win Senate confirmation for key offices at his disposal–Trump himself regularly talks about this shortfall from his first go-around, saying he had only been to Washington DC a handful of times and never stayed overnight before he won the White House in 2016–but this time he does. Patel’s resume is that of someone who clearly is qualified to lead the FBI, and to bring Trump’s vision–the vision that won all seven swing states and the national popular vote in the 2024 election–in there.
In fact, as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) pointed out on Saturday night after Patel’s appointment, Patel has even prosecuted more cases than outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris ever did:
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) backed up Patel too saying on Sunday morning he is absolutely qualified to lead the FBI:
Of course, all of this undercuts Democrat and deep state griping about qualifications of this person or that person and their constant claims that nothing can change because this is just the way things are. Senators may disagree with Patel on one thing or another, but they cannot legitimately argue that the person who led counterterrorism activities for the Trump White House including overseeing the raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, serving as a senior adviser to the Director of National Intelligence, as chief of staff at the Pentagon, and as a top attorney for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), as well as a long and illustrious career both as a prosecutor and as a public defender, is not qualified for the job. So see, this move by Trump puts these forces that his base has long distrusted and sought to counter in check–if not checkmate–and that’s why his base is so excited.
Patel has spent his time since Trump’s first term burnishing his credentials even further, laying out in a book titled Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy how he would combat these forces and what the challenges are that the nation faces.
Even some more establishment-aligned Republicans on Capitol Hill are already signaling they are okay with Patel coming in as the FBI director as well, a very strong start for his eventual confirmation battle in the U.S. Senate:
Even more interesting that Speaker Mike Johnson backing up Patel was Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who on CNN said he had no reservations about Patel’s appointment:
Lawler is basically the most front-line member of the House Republican conference–his district is one of if not the bluest seats House Republicans control–so if he’s out there backing up Patel saying he’s good to go on this then it’s hard to see establishment Republicans in the Senate working to undercut him legitimately. But again, if anyone tries to stand in the eminently qualified Patel’s way of Senate confirmation, this America First movement which is genuinely buzzing with excitement will likely force that person to answer for it–and so it’s far more likely the president-elect gets his way here which signals that real change is a-coming to the FBI.
