In his 2023 e book Government Gangsters, Kash Patel, the president’s nominee for FBI director, describes a “deep state” conspiracy in opposition to Donald Trump that he equates with a conspiracy to subvert democracy and the Structure. “The value of rule by the Deep State is excessive—nothing lower than the tip of self-government in America,” he writes. “The Deep State is a cabal of unelected tyrants who suppose they need to decide who the American folks can and can’t elect as president, who suppose they get to resolve what the president can and can’t do, and who consider they’ve the appropriate to decide on what the American folks can and can’t know.”
The e book features a checklist of 60 former executive-branch officers who crossed Trump in a technique or one other, all of whom Patel identifies as members of this cabal. They vary from Democrats corresponding to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton to Trump appointees corresponding to former Lawyer Normal Invoice Barr and former White Home Counsel Pat Cipollone. The checklist “isn’t exhaustive,” Patel notes. “It doesn’t, for instance, embrace different corrupt actors of the primary order corresponding to Congressmen Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell.” Nor does it embrace “the pretend information media,” which Patel additionally portrays as a part of this conspiracy.
Testifying earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee throughout his confirmation hearing final week, Patel insisted that his fingering of deep-state conspirators didn’t quantity to an “enemies checklist,” not to mention a litany of suspects he can be inclined to analyze as head of the FBI—a priority that appears believable in mild of Trump’s repeated threats to punish his political opponents. “It is not an enemies checklist,” Patel said. “That may be a mischaracterization.” He promised “the one factor that can matter if I am confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of legislation enforcement fully dedicated to rigorous obedience to the Structure and a singular customary of justice.”
Patel sang a distinct tune throughout a December 2023 podcast interview with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who requested Patel if he might promise there can be “critical prosecutions and accountability” for “these deep-staters” in a second Trump time period. Completely, Patel stated: “We’ll exit and discover the conspirators—not simply in authorities, however within the media. Sure, we’re gonna come after the folks within the media who lied about Americans, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re gonna come after you. Whether or not it is criminally or civilly, we’ll determine that out. However yeah, we’re placing all of you on discover. And Steve, because of this they hate us. For this reason we’re tyrannical. For this reason we’re dictators. As a result of we’re really gonna use the Structure to prosecute them for crimes they stated we have now all the time been responsible of however by no means have.”
If senators thought Patel would observe by means of on that dedication, at the least a number of Republicans, maybe sufficient to nix his nomination, is perhaps reluctant to substantiate him as head of the federal authorities’s main legislation enforcement company for the subsequent 10 years. So it’s not shocking that Patel is eager to pretend that he by no means stated what he stated. “I’ve no curiosity, no want, and won’t, if confirmed, go backwards,” Patel told the committee. “There shall be no politicization on the FBI. There shall be no retributive actions taken.”
Patel’s assurances don’t essentially contradict his promise to “come after” the “corrupt actors” (together with anti-Trump journalists) and punish them a technique or one other for his or her “crimes,” since Patel has all the time portrayed that mission as in line with the Structure and his “singular customary of justice.” In his view, investigating “deep-staters” wouldn’t quantity to “politicization” of the FBI or retribution in opposition to Trump’s enemies; it could be rescuing “self-government” from the “cabal” bent on destroying it.
Patel was equally slippery when he was asked whether or not he agrees with Trump that Biden stole the presidency by means of huge election fraud. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D–Hawaii) famous that “the FBI is the first company chargeable for investigating election-related crimes,” so “with the ability to separate truth from conspiracy theories round elections is a crucial factor for an FBI director.” On condition that, Hirono thought it was price asking Patel a simple query about current historical past: “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 presidential election, sure or no?” Patel refused to commit in some way. “President Joe Biden’s election was licensed, he was sworn in, and he served because the president of the USA,” he stated.
Alongside related strains, senators would possibly want to not affirm an FBI director who lends credence to a conspiracy theory that portrays Trump as a savior battling “a secret cabal of Devil-worshipping pedophiles who’re abducting, abusing, and ritualistically murdering youngsters by the 1000’s.” Patel has a historical past of pleasant interactions with QAnon followers: He has appeared on their podcasts, praised them, and reached out to them on social media. Patel’s coziness with QAnon raises reliable questions on his judgment, particularly since their weird narrative overlaps together with his personal description of Trump’s battles with the “deep state.”
Sen. Charles Grassley (R–Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sought to assuage these issues. “Some folks on this committee have accused you of selling the QAnon motion,” Grassley famous, dismissing that cost as “guilt by affiliation” and asking Patel to set the document straight: “Are you a follower or promoter of QAnon?”
No approach, Patel stated. “In truth,” he added, “I’ve publicly, together with within the interviews supplied to this committee, rejected outright QAnon baseless conspiracy theories or every other baseless conspiracy theories. They have to be addressed head on with the reality, and I’ll proceed to try this.”
Does this sound like an outright rejection of QAnon doctrine? “The Q factor is a motion,” Patel told podcast host Mary Grace in November 2022. “Lots of people connect themselves to it. I disagree with lots of what that motion says, however I agree with lots of what that motion says.”
Patel took the same place throughout a June 2020 interview with BardsFM. “I agree with a few of what he does, and I disagree with a few of what he does,” he said, referring to “Q,” the pseudonymous supply of QAnon theories. “If it permits folks to collect and deal with the reality and the information, I am all for it.”
When a Patriot Party News host asserted, throughout a June 2022 present, that “Q has been so proper about so many issues,” Patel concurred. “I agree with you,” he said. “He has. And you have to harness that following that Q has garnered and simply kind of tweak it a little bit bit. That is all I am saying. He ought to get credit score for the entire issues he has completed, as a result of it is onerous to ascertain a motion.”
The minor tweaks that Patel had in thoughts presumably would come with ditching claims such because the fictitious video that supposedly confirmed Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin “ripping off a toddler’s face and carrying it as a masks earlier than consuming the kid’s blood in a Satanic ritual sacrifice.” Patel may additionally wish to excise the belief that Trump, by sipping from a water bottle throughout a speech in his first yr as president, was displaying “a secret signal that he [was] about to carry down an elite youngster sex-trafficking ring.” Come to think about it, that complete thought of an “elite youngster sex-trafficking ring” run by progressive Satanists, which is central to QAnon teachings, may need to go.
Such quibbles didn’t cease Patel from effusively praising his hosts throughout a September 2022 look on The MG Present, a QAnon podcast. “You guys are the most effective,” Patel said. “I really like being in your program.” What makes them “the most effective,” it appears clear, is that they’ve the appropriate enemies, who’re for probably the most half the identical nemeses that Patel identifies in Authorities Gangsters.
That is Patel’s thought of difficult “baseless conspiracy theories…head on with the reality.” Given the supposedly minor variations to which Patel has alluded, it could be inaccurate to explain him as a QAnon “follower.” However anybody who genuinely thinks the motion is only a “tweak” away from credibility shouldn’t be entrusted with the FBI’s huge investigative powers. Extra doubtless, Patel was cynically embracing a gaggle with manifestly loony concepts about the best way the world works as a result of he noticed it as an essential a part of Trump’s constituency. QAnon’s dedication to Trump was sufficient to miss its divorce from actuality.
The overriding precedence of loyalty to Trump may additionally clarify why Patel is reluctant to reject the president’s stolen-election fantasy. That is assuming Patel doesn’t sincerely consider Trump really gained reelection in 2020. Both approach, Patel’s obeisance to Trump doesn’t bode nicely for his avowed dedication to observe the legislation reasonably than his boss’s vendettas.
Patel did create some daylight between him and Trump when he was asked concerning the president’s blanket clemency for Capitol rioters, which provoked criticism even from Trump’s dependable supporters on the Fraternal Order of Police. Sen. Richard Durbin (D–In poor health.) famous a number of examples of defendants who benefited from Trump’s pardons though they’d been convicted of violent crimes. Then he requested, “Was President Donald Trump improper to offer blanket clemency for January 6 defendants?”
Sure, Patel implied: “I’ve all the time rejected any violence in opposition to legislation enforcement,” together with “any violence in opposition to legislation enforcement on January 6, and I don’t agree with the commutation of any sentence for any particular person who dedicated violence in opposition to legislation enforcement.” Whereas “I’ve not checked out all 1,600 particular person circumstances,” he stated, “I’ve all the time advocated for imprisoning those who trigger hurt to our legislation enforcement and civilian communities.”
That’s in line with what Patel says in Authorities Gangsters. “January sixth was a nationwide tragedy, and people who broke the legislation ought to be prosecuted swiftly for the crimes they dedicated,” he writes. “As a former public defender and federal prosecutor, I’m unwaveringly in favor of upholding the legislation pretty and equally in all circumstances.”
That seemingly clear place, nevertheless, is sophisticated by Patel’s indiscriminate help for the January 6 defendants, whom he has called “political prisoners,” echoing Trump. By his personal account, Patel helped produce “Justice for All,” a recording featured at Trump’s rallies wherein Trump recites the Pledge of Allegiance in opposition to a background of the nationwide anthem sung by a choir of jailed Capitol riot defendants recorded over a telephone line. “I didn’t have something to do with that recording,” Patel said at his listening to when Durbin requested him about it. However as Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) later noted, that disavowal contradicted what Patel had informed Bannon on the latter’s podcast.
“What we thought can be cool is that if we captured that audio” and “had the best president, Donald J. Trump, recite the Pledge of Allegiance,” Patel informed Bannon. “Then we went to a studio and recorded it, mastered it, digitized it, and put it out as a track….We have been capable of seize that recording because of their brave singing, and we have been capable of take it to a studio. It is an precise track. ‘Justice for All’ is now accessible on each music website.”
Why does any of this matter? Throughout his change with Durbin, Patel described the track as a part of an effort to “elevate funds” for the households of “nonviolent offenders” who have been “in want.” However the choir included folks charged with assaulting cops, thereby blurring the excellence that Patel drew when he implicitly criticized Trump’s clemency for such defendants. “I didn’t know concerning the violent offenders,” he informed Schiff, “and I didn’t take part in any of the violence in and round January 6.”
That final half was a bit bizarre, since nobody was accusing Patel of assaulting cops. However as Schiff advised, Patel confirmed a scarcity of “due diligence” when he promoted a recording known as “Justice for All” that featured the very kind of violent offenders he now says have been rightly imprisoned. That contradiction displays Patel’s broader try and transform himself now that his extra outré views have turn into a legal responsibility.
Till not too long ago, Patel was a zealous Trump hatchet man who vowed to “come after” the president’s opponents, glossed over violent crimes dedicated in response to Trump’s phony election grievance, and cozied up with Trump supporters whose conspiracy theories have been too wild even for MAGA Republicans who reside in an alternate universe the place Trump beat Biden in 2020. Patel was a Trump toady who wrote children’s books detailing the travails of the smart and simply “King Donald,” who was ready to overcome his evil enemies with the assistance of “a wizard known as Kash the Distinguished Discoverer.”
Describing his alter ego, Patel explains that he “was recognized far and vast because the one one that might uncover something about something.” Which may sound like an asset for an FBI director—till you think about that Patel, with out the good thing about any such inquiry, has already recognized his targets.
Now Patel presents himself as a sober and devoted public servant dedicated to upholding justice and the rule of legislation. Judging from the obvious credulousness of Republican committee members, they both purchase that reinvention or are prepared to faux they do.
