Kash Patel’s devotion to Trump would make him a dangerous FBI director

When President-elect Donald Trump announced that Kash Patel would be his nominee for FBI Director, my reaction was not subtle. Appearing on MSNBC, I warned that if confirmed, Patel would “act like a cross between Alex Jones and J. Edgar Hoover.”

It’s an assessment I still stand by three weeks later, even if Patel’s nomination hasn’t drawn the same opposition from Republican senators as some of Trump’s other controversial picks. If my comparison seems superficial or, as one media outlet called it, “apoplectic,” it’s because Hoover’s tyranny and similarities to Jones, the conspiracy theorist and former Infowars host, have been downplayed over the decades since his death. This also doesn’t take into account how much worse Patel could get if given the chance.

Patel’s relationship with Trump highlights his talent for endearing himself to the worst people. Patel’s time as a MAGA acolyte began when he helped obstruct the Russia investigation as a congressional aide in the early days of the Trump administration. As a reward, Trump demanded that his staff give Patel a position on the National Security Council in the White House.

Since then, Patel has continued to use this relationship to his advantage. He has become a major right-wing media figure, willing to say anything, regardless of the facts, as long as it portrays Trump in a good light. On a part-time basis, he took a position as a fellow at the pro-Trump think tank founded by Russ Vought, Trump’s chosen director of the Office of Management and Budget. Patel has also emulated his patron’s penchant for selling goods to the little ones in the crowd and collecting questionable money.

And most importantly for Trump, Patel would undoubtedly be willing to use the investigative power of the FBI against anyone the president-elect targets. Here’s how he put it last year during an appearance on former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast:

What Patel promises is a return to the days of Hoover, when the FBI’s power was almost entirely unchecked and directed against the left-wing organizers its director loathed. When Hoover first joined the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation in 1917, he was assigned to head its “Radical Division.” It was a good fit for the 24-year-old reactionary who became acting director of the FBI a few years later in 1924. He spent nearly 50 years at the helm of the FBI, surviving seven presidents and serving under an eighth before dying in his sleep in 1972.

In contrast to Patel’s eagerness to attack journalists, Hoover spent most of his career viewing the media as complicit in garnering public opinion for his G-Men’s activities. At his peak in the 1950s, he positioned himself as one of the country’s most trusted men, anti-communist yet seemingly willing to protect civil liberties. But behind closed doors, Hoover stored potential blackmail material against political figures and conducted unwarranted surveillance of American citizens.

As Hoover grew older, he became bolder and willing to return to his earlier focus on dismantling left-wing organizations. His professional racism helped spur the creation of COINTELPRO, the now infamous program designed to spy, harass and otherwise discredit liberal voices. He fully embraced conspiracy theories that attributed any left-wing sentiment or support for civil rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. to Soviet influences. It was only after Hoover’s death that the full revelation of the FBI’s abuses under his watch became public, thanks in part to reporting by an NBC News journalist and the blockbuster congressional investigation.

Hoover had one thing that bolstered his aura of invincibility that Patel will not have: the presidents he served over time began to fear him. President Richard Nixon was unwilling to fire the director, even as excitement grew as the public got its first clues about the extent of the FBI’s surveillance of anti-Vietnam War activists. Nixon was recorded on the White House tape system saying he was worried that firing Hoover would cause him to “throw arms with him, myself included.”

Patel has no chance of such a power dynamic with Trump – but that is not a positive development. He has shown little tangible success in the roles given to him during his rise to fame, while actively angering those around him. His devotion to Trump is the only qualification he has that keeps him from the kind of independence Hoover displayed. Instead, it will be Patel who is in constant fear of being fired and, as a result, taking action against his perceived common enemies.

There will also be no reason for Trump to worry about Patel because his North Star will be to please the boss, not serve justice. And what the president-elect wants is an FBI that serves his needs while violating norms that prohibit conducting investigations from the White House. Not that this would necessarily be a problem for Patel, considering he’s clearly willing to do whatever it takes to keep his place on Trump’s good side. If the Senate confirms him in January, it would be a catastrophic blow to the freedom and security of all Americans. The FBI becomes a loaded machine gun in the hands of a coward, a man willing to open fire on anyone who might threaten his reputation.