Trump taps ‘deep state’ conspiracy theorist Kash Patel to lead the FBI

John Yang:

Good evening. I'm John Yang. President-Elect Trump continues stalking his new administration with staunch loyalists. He said this weekend he'll nominate Kash Patel to be FBI director. Patel is an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump and says the FBI is part of what he calls the deep state conspiracy against the president elect and his allies.

On social Media last night, Mr. Trump said Patel played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability and the Constitution. The job requires Senate confirmation.

Ryan Reilly covers the Justice Department and federal law enforcement for NBC News. He's the author of "Sedition Hunters: How January 6 Broke the Justice System." Ryan, tell us who Kash Patel is. What's his background? What's his relation to a relationship with Mr. Trump?

Ryan Reilly, NBC News:

Yeah, so he started off as a staffer with Devin Nunez, which is really what sort of got him into Donald Trump's orbit. And I think what he's most known for is being willing to do sort of whatever Donald Trump would like him to do.

And I think the difference between him and most folks in federal law enforcement and within the FBI is that within the FBI, you sort of follow the facts where they lead you and then you reach a conclusion based upon those facts.

And I think with the issue with Kash Patel here is that he sort of reaches the conclusion ahead of time and then tries to implement something that would justify what he wanted to reach in the first place to begin with. Right.

So I think a lot of the conclusions he comes up with, it's sort of the accusation upfront as opposed to necessarily the facts. And we've seen that repeatedly with Kash Patel, who has also authored a children's book, actually, that stars Donald Trump as king and features himself as a wizard sort of helping out the king.

So that's definitely the dynamic that this brings to this FBI nomination. And of course, we should say that Chris Wray still has many years left on his term. And if were under normal order, this wouldn't be something that would be under consideration, because Chris Wray still has several years, and he was appointed, you know, seven years ago roughly by Donald Trump himself. So that term isn't at its end yet.

And we don't know whether or not he will be fired, whether he will resign, how exactly his term will come to an end.

John Yang:

Ryan, earlier this year, Kash Patel talked to a podcaster named Sean Ryan about what he thought about the FBI. Let's take a listen.

Kash Patel, FBI-Director-Designate:

I'd shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You're cops. Go be cops. Go chase down murderers and rapists and drug dealers and violent offenders.

John Yang:

You know, since 2016, practically, the FBI has been sort of roiled with turmoil. What do you think the reaction is going to be to something like this?

Ryan Reilly:

Yeah, I can't imagine a lot of FBI employees had necessarily a great Thanksgiving weekend because this is really something that I think would be pretty destructive to the bureau itself and to their way of going about business.

I think the important thing is looking at broadly what the FBI does. Of course, we hear a lot about these political cases, these cases that relate to politics, because Donald Trump is complaining about them a lot. You have individuals like Kash Patel who are creating a media empire, so to speak, based upon these accusations against the FBI and making children's books off of them and that sort of thing.

But that's not really what the FBI fundamentally focuses on at its core. That's a small portion of the work that they do overall. I think that you definitely have to keep that perspective in mind when he talks about this notion of sending everyone back out to their field offices. Sure. I mean, headquarters is rather large and that's certainly a discussion to be had about whether what that balance would look like.

And I think fair minded folks can have that discussion, but it's just not a reflection of what the Bureau actually looks like. I think on a day to day basis, this notion that they're solely focused on going after Donald Trump, especially because you have so much ideological diversity within the bureau, so to speak, and including some people who are strong supporters of Donald Trump and individuals who resisted going after these January 6th defendants, for example. So I don't think it really accurately reflects what the reality of the FBI is today.

John Yang:

As you say, the FBI is a big organization. What can a director do unilaterally without the support of the staff around him?

Ryan Reilly:

Yeah, well, that's. I mean, that's the interesting component of this because of course, it often is the FBI and the Justice Department working sort of hand in hand or sometimes there's a little bit of tension there.

Typically the FBI is following leads. Often a lot of their work is assisting local law enforcement. You know, they have these labs that have great technology that can assist a lot of local law enforcement. So that's definitely what you sort of see the Hollywood image about the FBI being.

But truth be told, the FBI does have a lot of issues, especially I think, technologically. They're just not as advanced as the Hollywood image might necessarily say. So there's definitely some major issues, I think, on the horizon and even happening right now for the FBI.

There's this joke internally that the FBI has yesterday's technology tomorrow. And I think that technology question is really going to be a key one going into the next several years of the bureau. But if you have somebody heading it up who's sort of an overt partisan, that's going to definitely bring it in a different trajectory. And I think you're going to see decline in trust in the FBI.

John Yang:

This morning on NBC's Meet the Press, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, was asked about Patel, and this is what he had to say.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D) Connecticut: Kash Patel's only qualification is because he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should serve to punish, lock up and intimidate Donald Trump's political opponents.

John Yang:

Murphy said he's going to organize opposition in the Senate. Can Patel be nominated, or what's the nomination road going to look like for him?

Ryan Reilly:

I mean, it's a question that I think is kind of up in the air right now because we did see enough Republican senators sort of stand up and say that Matt Gaetz wasn't going to be attorney general. And I think what you have here is essentially the equivalent of the nomination of Matt Gaetz to be FBI director. And that's the question that we're going to have to see play out.

But, you know, it's very easy to create these public pressure campaigns and very quickly have some of these individual senators get a lot of calls aimed at their office. So that's something that you can really put the pressure on those senators, and there's really, you know, three or four of them they would have to lose in order for him not to go through. So that's really, I think, a question that's up in the air right now.

But certainly Cash Patel is raising a lot of worries within the Bureau, broadly speaking.

John Yang:

NBC's Ryan Reilly, thank you very much.

Ryan Reilly:

Thanks so much.