Victor Davis Hanson
Kash Patel/FBI Director
In sum, Patel’s résumé documents in detail his investigative and intelligence skills in all three branches of government (the courts, the executive branch, and the Congress).
The idea that he is disqualified because he had not been in the FBI or law enforcement as an officer is silly. Before David Petraeus arrived in Iraq to command the 101st Airborne in 2003, he was 51 and had neither yet been in a true combat theater nor had commanded a unit in active combat. And? He managed the “Surge” just fine when other generals with prior combat experience could not. Donald Trump, as mentioned, had never been elected to anything before becoming President. Should we have demanded he had something akin to Joe Biden’s mile-long, four-decade Senate résumé?
So, what is it that enrages the Left about Patel?
Mostly his frequent and detailed advocacies about reforms for the FBI that entail laying off drone administrators, ensuring that none of his agents had previously broken federal statutes, moving the incestuous and weaponized FBI headquarters out of Washington, D.C., and using a different paradigm to promote FBI agents to the highest echelon (one different from the processes that resulted in the Mueller/Comey/McCabe/Wray director mode).
What would that entail?
A Director Patel would likely review all FBI administrative files. And should he find any directives to field offices to predicate investigations on politics or to use the agency to promote an Obama or Joe Biden agenda that entailed investigating their enemies, he would likely fire them after due process.
The huge FBI woke/DEI apparatuses would probably vanish.
Patel’s agenda, as I understand them, would be to correct sins of commission and omission. That is, by cutting out the costly weaponization of the agency—no more partnering with social media, no more revolving-door FBI-to-Twitter/Facebook hiring, no more snooping on and setting up political campaign operatives, no more becoming a retrieval service for the wayward First Family, etc.—he would free up more resources to concentrate on what the FBI should be doing: investigating espionage among foreign students, as well as foreign agents illegally entering the U.S., hunting down plots to assassinate the president, breaking up the cartel presence in the American Southwest, interrupting the drug supply chain from Mexico to the U.S., and ensuring there are no more Boston Marathon-like bombers, Fort Hood shooters, or San Bernadino killers among us.
So, Patel’s sins, like those of Hegseth, are not inexperience and a thin résumé. Rather he has given enough prior evidence that if given the chance, he has the intelligence, skills, and desire to radically and quickly return the FBI to its original mission.
And that would mean much of the present FBI nomenklatura in Washington, D.C. would likely have to resign or be fired.
Discussion (6)
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The problem the left has with Patel is that he knows or can find where the bodies are buried. He scares the bejeus out of them. Which is exactly why he should be confirmed and proceed. He is the tip of the spear to drain the swamp. I could write more and longer, but you get my drift. APA
Kash Patel is a trial attorney, experienced in presenting before a jury the evidence and proof required for criminal acquittal or criminal conviction of defendants in accordance with the United States Code and US Constitution. In the British parlance, Mr. Patel is a barrister not a solicitor. Of all the licensed attorneys previously serving as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including the present Director, none have represented either a defendant or the Government before a sitting jury to a verdict in a federal criminal trial. The only “investigation” assigned to the FBI by the the US Code is to provide evidence, admissible and not constitutionally barred, for the US Attorneys and their Assistant Attorneys in each judicial district to prosecute and convict federal criminal defendants. Because Mr. Patel is experienced in litigating the actual investigation performed by FBI agents, his service as Director of the FBI will provide President Trump with the best advice and administration to “direct” the Federal Bureau of Investigation to fulfill its statutory mission to the citizens of the United States.
There is no better man than Kash Patel to right the wayward FBI. It will be a monumental undertaking, but Kash will get it done.
I wonder if the FBI culture looks and operates like all other organizations.. There are a few percent solid company men that believe and support the charter that's engraved on the big brass plack in the workplace entrance. There are a gradient of a large dedicated to work and home employees that carry the load of building federal widgets. Then there are those employees that lie fallow, shapeless like water taking the shape of the bottom of it's fishbowl. Malfeasance from any of the layers of my simple organizational description can slow or cripple it's function, no doubt, but tolerance to misfeasance and worse is easily acquired due to the fluidity of all employees relaxing into the shape of their company fishbowl. The ship of Charter lies floating keel up, on the surface. What to do? Well, launch a new ship with a new trim line. Rid the company's leaden internal detractors. Change the culture into a visible accountability model. Train, train, train, and vastly streamline the product handling. There has to be a buy in to excellence. It can be done but it takes a lot of training, not just firing the bad employees, it takes huge well planned efforts. They never stop training. Can that be done with agencies? Just firing the shapeless detractors helps but comprises only 10% of the road to success.
I wonder if the FBI culture looks and operates like all other organizations.. There are a few percent solid company men that believe and support the charter that's engraved on the big brass plack in the workplace entrance. There are a gradient of a large dedicated to work and home employees that carry the load of building federal widgets. Then there are those employees that lie fallow, shapeless like water taking the shape of the bottom of it's fishbowl. Malfeasance from any of the layers of my simple organizational description can slow or cripple it's function, no doubt, but tolerance to misfeasance and worse is easily acquired due to the fluidity of all employees relaxing into the shape of their company fishbowl. The ship of Charter lies floating keel up, on the surface. What to do? Well, launch a new ship with a new trim line. Rid the company's leaden internal detractors. Change the culture into a visible accountability model. Train, train, train, and vastly streamline the product handling. There has to be a buy in to excellence. It can be done but it takes a lot of training, not just firing the bad employees, it takes huge well planned efforts. They never stop training. Can that be done with agencies? Just firing the shapeless detractors helps but comprises only 10% of the road to success.
"And that would mean much of the present FBI nomenklatura in Washington, D.C. would likely have to resign or be fired." From you mouth to God's ears Dr. Hanson. Hopefully on Day One.