Kash Patel would turn the FBI into Trump's weapon of mass revenge

This unfit tick in the skin of democracy wants to destroy anyone who applied the rule of law to Trump. And that's his only qualification.

The New York Times has offered us “Five Things to Know About Kash Patel, Trump’s Pick to Lead the F.B.I.” and they are:

1. Former colleagues question his qualifications.
2. He is the author of the ‘Nunes Memo.’
3. He was a would-be ‘political executioner.’
4. He says his nonprofit helps Jan. 6 defendants.
5. He sells pro-Trump merchandise under the logo K$H.

You’ll notice that not one of those things is an actual qualification for the FBI Director job. All of them are, in fact, anti-qualifications—unless you’re Donald Trump. Together, they add up to the only reason he was picked for this job: He will lawlessly seek revenge for Donald Trump. Don’t believe me. Believe Kash Patel.

Trump’s revenge will not be limited to anyone—including members of the media—who tried to hold him accountable for January 6th or stealing classified secrets or *everything else illegal he did since 2021*.

To understand the scope of how vast Trump’s revenge project will be, you need to check out Ball of Thread, the podcast I’ve been helping Marcy Wheeler produce.

In ten episodes, with three more to come, Marcy has documented how Trump brought us to the brink of fascism and turned the Republican Party against any pretense of the rule of law. A big part of that is his successful use of a revenge narrative. And few have been more instrumental to this fantasy that there’s a “deep state” conspiracy aiming to take out Donald Trump than Kash Patel.

The Times offers Patel’s authorship of the so-called “Nunes Memo” as the second thing to know about Patel. But it’s all you need to know. It’s the subject of episode four of Ball of Thread above, which includes the origin story of how Trump found the man who would do “anything” for him.

Alarm bells should be ringing everywhere from Trump’s cabinet nominations. Bobby Kennedy, for instance, will inevitably lead to the death of children. We know this because that is his only qualification to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Defense, is still the appointment that concerns me most. The man has called for the US military to pick a side in a “civil war.” That a man who was picked for his predilection for rolling tanks on American citizens hasn’t been immediately kiboshed to lead our military is a screeching alarm that, apparently, only we can hear.

This concern comes from the other podcast I’m working on. In the first episode of Next Comes What, Andrea Pitzer explained that one of the advantages of our effort to survive a second Trump stab at authoritarianism is an apolitical military. Hegseth would end that immediately.

There is no larger looming threat to our freedom than a U.S. military on the side of an aspiring Quthoritarian. But Kash Patel turning the FBI into solely an instrument of Trump’s revenge, and by doing so, driving out anyone who would apply the law to Trump, MAGA, and his donors, is a very close second. And that’s not even factoring in what he’d try to do to the free press in America.

We need to make these alarm bells audible.