When I was in law school, inspired by FBI's ABSCAM investigation of Capitol Hill bribery, I sincerely wanted to be an FBI agent: I interviewed with FBI in 1985 at legendary Atlanta placement conference. I was swiftly rejected due to bad eyesight; my Coke bottle glasses and the two agents powers of deduction gave me the answer in seconds. (Many years later, I learned from SABPD Officer Walter Makowski that this illegal FBI eyesight rule was repealed, shortly after my interview. The FBI settled an ADA case on eyesight.)
Two years later, in 1984, before I graduated from Memphis State University Law School, I took a Greyhound bus from Memphis to Knoxville, based on a good tip. Knowing of an impending FBI arrest of a criminal public official. I was so proud to watch the FBI arrest Anderson County, Tennessee. Sheriff DENNIS O. TROTTER on May 21, 1984. I wanted to sing the Star Spangled Banner.
I was not proud to see our maladroit Knoxville FBI do little or nothing about corruption in St. Johns County.
FBI arrested St. Johns County Commission Chairman THOMAS MANUEL for bribery, while ignoring developer influence and alleged bigger crimes under the maladministration of Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, an unjust steward and crummy Sheriff, who covered up the September 2, 2010 homicide of Ms. Michelle O'Connell in the home of Deputy JEREMY BANKS. Before the sun rose that day, SHOAR pronounced the officer-involved shooting homicide a "suicide." Dodgy S/HOARlegally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1984. Justice for Michelle O'Connell!
Running for Florida Senate seat 7 in a closed 2024 Republican Primary, disgraced former Sheriff DAVID S/HOAR got 25% of the vote. SHOAR is chief investigator for a law firm, which lost their millions of investments. Of counsel to the law firm included my friend, former SJC Commissioner Isaac Henry Dean, and the father of St. Augustine Beach Mayor, Dylan Rumrell.
President-elect DONALD JOHN TRUMP's FBI Director wannabe, KASH PATEL, is a huckster, in line with the ideology of DJT. The Times reports: "Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Patel has embraced online retail (under the brand 'K$H,' a logo he displays on his lapel and a scarf he often wears at Trump events). He has hawked wooden plaques, 'Warrior Essentials' anti-vaccine diet supplements and pro-Trump T-shirts. Sounds like a junior G. GORDON LIDDY to me. From The New York Times:
Kash Patel Would Bring Bravado and Baggage to F.B.I. Role
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to run the F.B.I. has a record in and out of government that is likely to raise questions during his Senate confirmation hearings.
Glenn ThrushElizabeth Williamson and Adam Goldman
Reporting from Washington
Few people tapped for any top federal post, much less a job as vital as F.B.I. director, have come with quite so much bravado, bombast or baggage as Kash Patel.
On Saturday, Mr. Patel, 44, a Long Island-born provocateur and right-wing operative, was named by President-elect Donald J. Trump to lead the F.B.I., an agency he has accused of leading a “deep state” witch hunt against Mr. Trump. The announcement amounted to a de facto dismissal of the current director, Christopher A. Wray, who was appointed to the job by Mr. Trump and still has almost three years left on his 10-year term.
Mr. Patel’s maximum-volume threats to exact far-reaching revenge on Mr. Trump’s behalf have endeared him to his boss and Trump allies who say the bureau needs a disrupter to weed out bias and reshape its culture.
But his record as a public official and his incendiary public comments are likely to provoke intense questioning when the Senate weighs his nomination — and determines whether he should run an agency charged with protecting Americans from terrorism, street crime, cartels and political corruption, along with the threat posed by China, which Mr. Wray has described as existential.
Here are some of the things Mr. Patel has said and done that could complicate his confirmation.
He was accused of nearly botching a high-stakes hostage rescue.
In October 2020, Mr. Patel, then a senior national intelligence official in the Trump administration, inserted himself into a secret effort by members of SEAL Team Six to rescue Philip Walton, an American who was 27 at the time and had been kidnapped by gunmen in Niger and taken to Nigeria.
Mr. Patel, whose involvement broke with protocol, assured the State and Defense Departments that the Nigerian government had been told of the operation.
But defense officials could not confirm the approval, and were forced to scramble to obtain the necessary clearance even as the aircraft circled over the target, according to accounts confirmed by a senior defense official familiar with the operation.
Mr. Walton was eventually rescued. But former Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, writing in his memoir, said that Mr. Patel “made the approval story up,” potentially endangering everyone involved.
He wants to shut down F.B.I. headquarters.
In a 2023 book, Mr. Patel supported a plan to greatly weaken the bureau’s central command structure through a range of what he termed “reforms,” including shuttering the bureau’s headquarters and dispersing its staff and leadership to field offices around the country.
“We need to get the F.B.I. the hell out of Washington, D.C.,” wrote Mr. Patel, who has subsequently suggested the building be reopened as a museum to the Trump-slain deep state.
He said he wants to move the headquarters outside the capital and eliminate service in Washington as a step to promotion “to prevent institutional capture and curb F.B.I. leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship.”
Mr. Trump, for his part, does not appear to be on board with that plan. Earlier this year, he opposed moving the F.B.I.’s main offices to Maryland, writing on social media that “THE NEW FBI BUILDING SHOULD BE BUILT IN WASHINGTON, DC.”
The headquarters plan is no lark, however. It is part of a broader strategy, outlined in Mr. Patel’s book, that would entail transferring some decision-making from Washington to lower-ranking Justice Department officials in offices around the country.
Eighty percent of federal employees already work outside the capital.
Current and former officials warn that doing so could marginalize experienced officials responsible for determining the legality, resource allocation and supervision of important investigations. It could also make it easier for White House officials to apply direct pressure on frontline investigators without interference from superiors, they said.
Mr. Patel was one of the first Trump allies to promote the idea that the investigation was, as he put it in his book, “nothing more than a political hit job.”
His efforts impressed Mr. Trump, who elevated him to a series of jobs in the defense, national security and intelligence establishment — where he chafed against officials with greater experience and institutional distance from Mr. Trump.
While the Justice Department’s inspector general determined that the bureau had acted without political bias, investigators unearthed many mistakes associated with the secret surveillance warrants, a small part of the larger Russia investigation.
A four-year investigation by a special counsel appointed under Mr. Trump, John H. Durham, determined that prosecutors had pursued the case too aggressively because they were convinced of the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.
But he found no evidence that officials had been motivated by political animus, contrary to claims by Mr. Trump and Mr. Patel, and did not indict any of the senior F.B.I. officials who oversaw the investigation and had been targeted by Mr. Trump’s allies. The report revealed little substantial new information about the inquiry, known as “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Going After Reporters and Leakers
None of these wares are as striking as Mr. Patel’s line of children’s books, in which he portrays himself as a wizard of the Gandalf type, wearing a midnight blue robe covered with glittering stars and half moons.
Mr. Trump, broad-shouldered and crowned, is known as “the King.”
An earlier version of this article misstated the age of Philip Walton, an American who was kidnapped in 2020, and the country where he had been taken captive. Mr. Walton was 27 at the time, not 17, and was kidnapped in Niger, not Nigeria.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons. More about Glenn Thrush
Elizabeth Williamson is a feature writer for The Times, based in Washington. She has been a journalist for three decades, on three continents. More about Elizabeth Williamson
Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Adam Goldman
Trump Transition: News and Analysis
D.E.A. Pick Withdraws: Sheriff Chad Chronister, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, withdrew his name from consideration for the office, citing the “gravity” of the job.
Patel’s F.B.I. Plan: Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the F.B.I., has called for firing the agency’s top officials, shutting down its Washington headquarters and prosecuting journalists.
Background Checks: Trump’s transition operation announced that it had belatedly signed an agreement with the Justice Department that will allow the F.B.I. to conduct background checks on his nominees.
Shaking Up Health Care: Scientists and experts have expressed alarm that Trump wants to give over the country’s health agencies to people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz. But for some voters, rejecting norms is exactly the point.
Biden’s Unlikely Ally: Trump has promised to unravel President Biden’s major legislation, but Biden is hoping to salvage his most prized policies with help from an unlikely source: Republicans.
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1 comment:
With all the division going on, thanks in part to them, it's gonna be a pain in the ass to be in any public position...so they reap what they sow.
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