Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to run the FBI, plans to radically change the FBI if confirmed. How will his ideas play out in practice?

From Just the News. President-elect Donald Trump sent shockwaves through the Washington establishment and the halls of Congress this weekend when he named Kash Patel as his choice to be the new FBI director.

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While Patel appeared to be the favorite among MAGA supporters for the position, he also appears to have rattled those inside the FBI and Justice Department accused of using their power to undermine Trump.

The 44-year-Patel, in fact, made a public pitch for the post before being nominated, saying a top priority if confirmed would be to shutdown the FBI headquarters and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state.’” …

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Sunday told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that Patel is a “very strong nominee” and said it is “no secret” that Wray will resign or be fired.

“You look at his background, he has a serious professional background,” Cruz said of Patel. “He was a prosecutor; he was a public defender. He was a senior intelligence staffer on Capitol Hill. He was a senior intelligence staffer in the White House. He was the chief of staff of the Department of Defense. He was the deputy director of national intelligence.”

But not everyone is pleased.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton compared Patel to one of the former Soviet Union’s most feared secret police chiefs, Lavrentiy Beria, according to The Hill.

“Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrentiy Beria,” Bolton said in a statement to NBC News’ “Meet The Press” on Sunday. “Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD. The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0.” …

House Speaker Mike Johnson congratulated Patel in a post on the social platform X.

“Kash Patel has extensive experience in national security and intelligence,” the Louisiana Republican wrote. “He is an America First patriot who will bring much-needed change and transparency to the FBI.” …

From Just the News. When Ronald Reagan sought to reshape the federal government nearly a half century ago, he and his team adopted a simple philosophy: personnel is policy. In other words, the people you hire, and fire, will make a difference.

President-elect Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, subscribes to a similar prescription for the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, which has lost significant trust from the American people over a decade of scandal and failure.

From his time as chief investigative counsel at the House Intelligence Committee, where he unraveled the FBI’s bogus Russia collusion narrative, to his best-selling book “Government Gangsters” where he chronicled the weaponization of law enforcement against Trump and conservatives, Patel has laid out clear plans on how to re-focus the bureau on its core missions of law enforcement and intelligence gathering and away from politics.

That job, he insists, begins by cleaning house throughout the FBI’s several layers of leadership that became infected with ideologies like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and created a culture where parents and traditional Catholics were viewed as extremist threats and support for Trump and the Second Amendment were deemed reasons to review an employee’s security clearance. …

Over the last two years in interviews with Just the News, Patel has laid out several ideas for fixing the FBI, including:

• Canceling plans for an expensive new FBI headquarters and turning the current headquarters into a “museum for the Deep State.”
• Moving leaders out of Washington and into the field closer to the people they serve
• Shrinking components of the FBI that have little public benefit; and
• Holding accountable those officials responsible for the politicization of prior investigations, including termination and prosecutions.

“The folks in power at the FBI and the IC (intelligence community) making these leadership decisions are terrified that their corruption. not the Bidens, and certainly not Donald Trump, but their corruption in government in senior positions will be exposed and subject to law enforcement,” he told Just the News earlier this year.

Patel’s book and his ideas for ending politicized law enforcement were a major factor in Trump’s decision to name him his the next FBI director.

Currently, the job is held by Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed in 2017, and it includes a 10-year-old term. But it is widely expected Trump will either fire Wray or he will resign. …

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(Excerpts from Just the News and Just the News. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Kash Patel, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=127058471)