Trump’s decision to tap Kash Patel for FBI director sends shockwaves

Washington — President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Saturday that he intends to nominate Kash Patel as FBI director sent shockwaves through Washington over the weekend, prompting outrage from Democrats and even some former Trump officials, while some loyalists insisted they believed Patel would be confirmed by the Senate. 

Patel, a 44-year-old who served in intelligence and defense roles in Trump’s first term, is a controversial figure even within Trump’s world, and a former U.S. official described him as “by far the most dangerous pick” Trump has made.

“There is no ‘there’ to him,” the official told CBS News. “He’ll literally do anything.”

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump’s first term and was Patel’s boss, compared the nomination to Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief.

“Fortunately, the FBI is not” Stalin’s secret police, Bolton said. “The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0.”

In response to Bolton’s comments, Vice President-elect JD Vance posted on social media that “John Bolton has been wrong about everything so I guess Kash must be pretty awesome.”

In addition to objections about Patel at the helm of the FBI, current FBI director Christopher Wray’s 10-year term is not due to end until 2027. For Patel to become FBI director, Wray would have to resign or be fired by Trump and Patel would need to be confirmed by the Senate. Republicans are set to hold a 53-47 majority come January, giving incoming Majority Leader John Thune only a few votes to lose. 

Trump called Patel “a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People” in a post on social media Saturday. And some of his supporters echoed the sentiment, like Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, who said Patel is a “very strong nominee” whom he thinks will be approved by the Senate.

“I got to say, all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all of the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI and clean out the corrupted partisans who sadly have burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI,” Cruz said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” 

Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he “encouraged President Trump to bring Kash Patel to the table,” saying Patel “represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI.”

Other Republicans, like Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, took a more cautious approach. Rounds expressed support for Wray, who was nominated by Trump in his first term in 2017. 

“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 said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now.”

Meanwhile, Democrats were highly critical of the pick. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on NBC that he will vote no, expressing concern that Patel “is going to only care about protecting Republicans.” And Murphy pledged to help his colleagues and the American public “understand what’s happening here.”

“Donald Trump told the American public during the campaign that he was going to turn the Department of Justice into a political operation, an arm of the White House, to destroy his political opponents,” Murphy said. “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”

In recent weeks, Trump’s most controversial selections for top posts in his administration have faced intense scrutiny as they prepare for the Senate confirmation process. And one pick, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, already withdrew his name from consideration facing headwinds in the Senate. 

Sen. Dick Durbin, the current majority whip in the upper chamber, urged his Senate colleagues in a statement to reject Trump’s pick of Patel, noting that “we already have a FBI director” and accusing the president-elect of wanting to “replace his own appointee with an unqualified loyalist.”

“The Senate should reject this unprecedented effort to weaponize the FBI for the campaign of retribution that Donald Trump has promised,” Durbin said.

Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.