The Trump Hit Squad Aiming to Target His Foes
With Kash Patel at the FBI and Pam Bondi at the Justice Dept. we can expect a flood of probes into Trump foes aimed at keeping our attention away from his lack of plans to help everyday Americans.
Retribution, they name is Kash Patel.
To head the FBI, Donald Trump has selected yet another bomb thrower, naming Patel to the job. Patel joins a collection of nominees whose main interests seem to be disrupting how government works, mainly to the benefit of Trump and others among the wealthy.
Patel in the past has threatened to go after journalists if given the opportunity by Trump., and now he has it. "We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,'' Patel said last year on the “War Room” blog. “We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. We'll figure that out. But yeah, we're putting you all on notice.”
He’s called the media “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen” and suggested reducing the size of the FBI and closing its Washington headquarters, adding that he’d “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.”
Of course, this might interrupt other things the FBI is responsible for, like fighting crime and conducting counter-intelligence work against America’s enemies. Remember when Republicans were the party of law and order? No more, it seems.
The announcement means current FBI director Christopher Wray must either resign or be fired after Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Wray was named by Trump and began a 10-year term in 2017, after Trump fired his predecessor, James Comey. Nonetheless, Biden — following tradition — decided to keep him on.
Meanwhile, Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department, has vowed to investigate and prosecute what she’s referred to as out-of-control federal prosecutors and FBI agents. With Bondi and Patel paired up, you can likely expect a flood of new investigations to pop up against anyone who has opposed Trump politically or journalistically in the past.
It will be a grand MAGA show that I’m sure Trump hopes will keep those who voted for him mesmerized as his attack dogs, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, cut government aid and regulatory rules that help keep everyday Americans safe, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rips apart our health agencies and Trump moves to extend and expand tax breaks for billionaires, millionaires and the corporations they run.
Tom Nichols, writing today in The Atlantic, noted that the Russians speak of the “power ministries,” the departments that have significant legal and coercive capacity.
“In the U.S.,” he writes, “those include the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the FBI, and the intelligence community. Trump has now named sycophants to lead each of these institutions, a move that eliminates important obstacles to his frequently expressed desires to use the armed forces, federal law-enforcement agents, intelligence professionals, and government lawyers as he chooses, unbounded by the law or the Constitution.”
And speaking of Trump’s disdain for American Justice, he followed up his naming of Patel by appointing Charles Kushner to be ambassador to France. Kushner, you might recall, was pardoned by Trump after he pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission.
And to show what a classy guy he is, Kushner —the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared — admitted in his plea that he hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in the federal probe, and then threatened to tell the man’s wife about it.
Kushner now becomes Trump’s second appointee with a criminal past. RFK Jr., nominated by Trump to lead Health & Human Services, was convicted of heroin possession when he was 29 after 14 years of addiction to the drug.
Heroin possession and tax evasion, oh my. We haven’t got a convicted rapist or murderer nominated yet, but give the president-elect time. We have to remember that Trump himself is a felon, convicted by a jury on 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment designed to keep a porn star from saying the two had sex.
Why would Trump pick Patel for the FBI job beyond their shared disdain for journalists and lack of respect for the law?
Trump has pledged a drastic overhaul of the FBI, claiming it carried out political probes against him and his allies. And he’s cited Patel’s efforts to discredit the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump.
Meanwhile, Patel is a guy who, after all, sells pro-Trump T-shirts online as well as a series of children’s books written by him that pay homage to “King Donald,” according to The New York Times. He’s also collected consulting fees from the 2024 Trump campaign and from “Friends of Matt Gaetz,” who withdrew from consideration as Trump’s attorney general after allegations of sex trafficking and drug use.
What more could you ask for the director of our nation’s premier law enforcement agency?
At this point, the only balancing weight left against Trump is the Republican-led Senate. The single biggest question in U.S. politics now is whether they will have the gumption to go toe-to-toe with Trump on his most outrageous picks.
My guess: It ain’t going to happen. The Republican Party, in essence, no longer exists. He’s remade it into the the MAGA party, and his personal weaknesses, including the lack of an ethical foundation, are its weaknesses. But the majority is a thin one, and you only need a few brave souls to make a difference, right?