Kash Patel spent years ingratiating himself with Donald Trump — regularly popping into the Oval Office in the first term, writing a children’s book starring “King Donald,” trailing him to rallies, banquets and bus tours on the ride back to power. Few practitioners of the audience-of-one strategy have been as successful at translating loyalty and proximity to Trump into real influence, reports the New York Times. Patel, 44, is Trump's pick to lead the FBI, which Patel has vowed to overhaul. What binds Trump and Patel is the shared conviction that the FBI has been weaponized against conservatives, including them. They argue it is politicized and the way to fix it is to empower an outsider willing to execute the Trump agenda — a sharp divergence from the agency’s norms and the decades-long practice of directors’ limiting contact with presidents.
The issue of Patel’s independence, or lack of it, will be a flashpoint at a confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday. Patel’s embrace of Jan. 6 conspiracy theories and unflinching fealty are the coin of the realm in the Trump orbit. His many critics say Patel’s oft-stated loyalty to the president poses one of the most significant challenges to the independence of the FBI in the century since founding director J. Edgar Hoover, built an investigative agency whose autonomy created leverage and abuses of power. “Hoover would have been appalled at Patel’s sycophancy of Donald Trump,” said Beverly Gage, a Yale professor and the author of a Hoover biography. “He’s so close to Donald Trump and is making no secret that he will use the bureau to punish Trump’s enemies. He’s coming in openly hostile to the institution. At the FBI, this is potentially earth-shattering.” In 2022, Patel published a roster of 60 people he suggested should be investigated, prosecuted or otherwise reviled, including former Attorneys General Merrick Garland and William Barr. Patel's defenders say the list was just a litany of people he did not like or trust. “Like me, Kash Patel uses fiery rhetoric and hyperbole to break through,” said Mike Davis, a former Senate Republican staff member who is close to Patel.
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