Once upon a time, there was a Trump toadie who wrote a fatuous children's book about a good king being persecuted by an evil queen named Hillary Queenton until one day a virtuous wizard comes to his rescue and saves the day:
One might not think too much of such a silly little project except the "writer" of those books, Kash Patel, has been nominated to run the FBI in the new Trump administration. The story is a thinly veiled narrative of Patel's original claim to fame, working for former congressman Devin Nunes's House Intelligence Committee investigation into the origins of the Russia probe following the 2016 election. The books weren't written to entertain kids. They were written to cozy up to Trump and demonstrate Patel's loyalty by literally portraying Trump as a king.
Donald Trump has finally found his Roy Cohn.
Trump hired Patel to join his National Security Council after the Nunes report came out and he quickly established himself as a direct conduit to Trump, feeding him whatever he thought he wanted to hear. According to Trump's Russia and Ukraine expert on staff, Fiona Hill, Trump even thought Patel was the man in charge of Ukraine in the White House. In reality, Patel had nothing to do with it at all. He insinuated himself into Trump's inner circle so tightly that as the term was winding down and the coup attempt was getting going after the 2020 election, Trump named him as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller. Trump wanted to install Patel as either the Director of the CIA or the FBI, the latter of which was met with Attorney General Bill Barr declaring that Trump would have to do it "over my dead body."
It looks like he's finally going to get his wish, assuming the Senate goes along with the appointment.
It's always possible that they won't. Considering Patel's reputation for extremism and the threats he's made during the time he was out of government, one would hope that at least a handful of Republicans would say it's unacceptable. But it's a very thin hope at this point.
All of this assumes that Trump fires the current director Christopher Wray, his own appointee, who still has three years to go on his term. That job is unique in that it was designed to be so above partisan politics that the 10-year term can extend even beyond an 8-year presidency. Presidents have the power to dismiss them but until Trump fired James Comey because he wasn't "loyal" enough to drop the investigation into Russian interference, there had only been one other instance and it involved substantial ethical violations. Trump apparently plans to fire Wray for no reason at all except that he wants to install a personal henchman in the job. The idea of an apolitical FBI Director is no longer operative. From now on, they will always be seen as members of the president's team, something that really was not true until Trump. It almost seems quaint to think about it now.
Patel has made the agenda clear with this clip that succinctly lays out what he believes his mission at the FBI would be:
A year ago, Trump appeared before a gala of young Republicans and he looked at Patel in the crowd and said, “Get ready, Kash, get ready.” He's ready.
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During the Trump exile in Mar-a-lago Patel took advantage of the wingnut welfare racket and made himself some money. He worked for Trump, of course, along with various think tanks. But he also created a brand for himself (K$h) and sold those children's books and another one called "Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy" about his years fighting against the evil cabal that wants to destroy America. He sold K$h-branded wine, clothing and playing cards among other things. He endorsed products and even modeled them. As history professor and author of "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present" Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote on X, "Note the K$H logo. I could update the masculinity chapter of #Strongmen with this image."
The Atlantic published the definitive profile of Patel last year, a piece by Elaina Plott Calabro that delved deeply into his early years growing up in New York and time spent working as a lawyer. He was a public defender for a while and then became a federal prosecutor. Early on he was apparently considered a bit of a showboating lawyer but generally a nice guy. But something happened along the way (beyond his burning ambition). He found himself embarrassed in the courtroom one day and developed an intense grievance against the Justice Department for allegedly failing to defend him in the press. There were other perceived slights that followed and that resentment seems to have fermented into a poisonous hostility toward the institution and the government itself. Like Trump, he believes that he's been persecuted and oppressed and is determined to wreak revenge on all those he believes have wronged him — and wronged the man to whom he has pledged his total fealty, Donald Trump.
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That sense of persecution is what all of the Trump nominees for law enforcement, intelligence and military institutions share. Their eagerness to burn it all down is what they have in common and I would imagine that after what they're going to go through with the confirmation process and the media attention, those feelings will be even more intense. There is no reason to believe that any of them will moderate once they assume the mantle of responsibility.
Trump is drunk with power right now. According to Axios, he has Elon Musk beside him 24/7 whispering in his ear "pushing 'radical reform' of, well, almost everything. As he sits next to Trump discussing administration picks, Musk often asks if the person embodies 'radical reform' — massive cuts and blow-it-up-to-rebuild instincts." He's no doubt telling Trump how he fired everyone at the companies he bought and rebuilt them from the ground up, something which Trump, with his little family business, has never done, having only played a real boss on a reality TV show. Trump wouldn't want to look weak to the richest man in the world. He's ready to blow it all up to impress him. And Kash Patel is a loyal true believer with a readiness to do whatever it takes to get it done and get revenge.
Donald Trump has finally found his Roy Cohn.
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