February 20, 2025 - 8:10pm
Kash Patel’s confirmation as FBI director comes at a time when the Bureau is more embroiled in political controversy than it ever has been in the post-Hoover period. The record of confirmation votes alone is telling. Prior to 2017, only a single vote had ever been cast against a nominee to head the FBI (Rand Paul, who mounted a lonely vote against James Comey over drones in 2013). Only five Democrats voted against Christopher Wray to be FBI director in August 2017. Today, Patel was confirmed on a party-line vote: every Democrat in the Senate along with two moderate Republicans — Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — voted against his nomination.
The FBI has become a proxy in battles over populism. James Comey inserted himself and the Bureau into the 2016 presidential race, and top FBI officials (including Comey himself) have become prominent critics of Donald Trump. The controversial post-2020 prosecutions of Trump and his allies turbocharged anxiety among many Right-leaning voters that federal law enforcement was being used to settle political scores.
As a result of all this, the two parties have polarised over the FBI as well as other federal institutions. As Harry Enten recently observed, the Republicans and Democrats used to be in relative agreement about the credibility of the FBI. In 2014, 62% of Republicans thought that the FBI was doing a good or excellent job, while 54% of Democrats believed the same. A decade later, Republican trust in the FBI cratered while Democratic support for it spiked: over two-thirds of Democrats thought the Bureau was doing a good or excellent job in 2024, but only 26% of Republicans agreed.
This crisis of trust was an essential precondition for the appointment of Kash Patel, who first rose to prominence in the hand-to-hand classified combat of the “Russiagate” era. Like other “brokenists” in Trump’s Cabinet, Patel was chosen to be a disruptor. The new director has quite the tightrope to walk in the years ahead.
The Comey-era gambit of portraying the FBI as the sword and shield of “our democracy” against populism has obviously damaged the organisation’s public standing. When negative partisanship rules, a federal agency endangers its own position if it seems to back one side in America’s ongoing culture war. If Patel can distance the FBI from hyper-charged political combat, that could help win back trust on both sides of the aisle.
However, turning the FBI into a tool of retribution against Democrats could worsen the cycle of retaliation. Open-ended and highly publicised investigations of high-profile Trump critics would invite further escalation under the next Democratic president. That could set the stage for a dire do-si-do, in which the parties would trade off using the FBI as an attack dog against each other. That bitter dance would also be an existential threat to the FBI itself, as partisans might conclude that it is better to put the Bureau down rather than have it be used against them in the future.
The disruptor agenda will take careful management. Over the past month, the new administration has used DOGE to remove many federal workers, and some populists certainly hope that Patel’s tenure will be a chance to clean house at the FBI. However, a downsizing that is too drastic or sudden may pose major risks both to Patel and the Trump administration. If disaster strikes, the Trump administration could be blamed for slashing needed and experienced FBI agents.
After 2016, some of the political establishment hoped to use an enhanced prosecutorial apparatus as some ultimate backstop to resist populist disruption. Rather than helping stabilise American democracy, that strategy actually heightened political conflict. Now that outsiders have taken power, they have an opportunity to escape the escalation cycle — or else face their own reckoning.
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SubscribeCome on, Fred, who do you think you are kidding? Are you in denial? Do you actually believe this could happen? Or are you trying to give advice to the President in the vain hope that Trump might follow it?
That line jumped out to me too. Patel is the definition of a hyper-partisan attack dog and his own comments confirm his intentions.
On one hand its fortunate that he is an incompetent clown who will inevitably fail in his desire to destroy US democracy.
On the other, probably not great that the FBI will be run by a poisonous dwarf who will be a lot more focused on trying to impress his equally dreadful boss instead of fulfilling the actual purpose of the FBI. That will cost American and the world.
Your ceaseless insults are getting old, CS ….
How about this then. Maybe Patel won’t have the FBI investigate parents causing disruptions at school board meetings, or Catholic Churches.
Or concoct tales of Boris and Natasha behind potted palms at Trump Tower.
Or continuing to arrest grandmothers for walking into the capital during the riots even after Trump won the election.
Glad to see Patel on the block!
Pleased that Patel may have an opportunity to bring some truth and transparency to a very corrupt
and partisan organisation. Whistle blowers will have the confidence to come forward and we hopefully may learn a little about what actually happened on 6Jan.
The whole of the US so called justice system is unfit for purpose especially when there is an element of politics involved.
I do hope this is a time for honesty and transparency rather than retribution. Patel has been on the wrong end of the system- let’s hope he is driven by a desire for a fairer system and not just settling old scores.
Expect to be disappointed. Except Trump cult members like you care nothing for honesty and transparency, do you? Patel will be a disaster.
Trump’s incredible comeback must be very hard for you CS. Just think – he has JD and/or Tulsi coming up behind – so the America First movement may be in power for decades.
There is open panic among the corrupt with the appointment of Patel, especially from those that engineered the “Russiagate” hoax.
Adan Schiff’s preemptive pardon by the non compass mentus Biden can’t prevent investigation into the deep pile of doo-doo within the FBI and elsewhere.`
I read an interesting comment somewhere to the effect that since people who are pardoned can’t incriminate themselves, they can’t ‘take the fifth’ and as such if subpoenaed would either have to tell the truth or to perjure themselves, and the perjury would be something new for which they weren’t pardoned.
So the frenzy of pardons Biden showered around in his last days might make it easier for a congressional hearing or other similar enquiry to get to the truth of a matter.
“Can Kash Patel restore the FBI’s credibility?” Given that he is a cross-eyed crackpot conspiracy theorist, it doesn’t seem likely.
This article is very naive.
Does anyone really believe that being nice to globalist, woke scum and their helpers in government institutions like FBI and others will result in them being nice to opposition when they are in power?
The same goes for uk and EU.
The odds that Patel can distance the FBI from hyper-charged political combat is ZERO. Orange Jesus will not allow that to happen, way toooooooo many enemies to crush.
The problem with the Trump administration taking the high road and not prosecuting people is that it is increasingly clear that many people broke the law in their war on Trump. DOGE is turning up evidence of massive fraud. People who engage in criminal behaviour should be prosecuted to deter similar behaviours in the future.