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The next FBI director may be a “Trump loyalist” who supports creating a declassification office and shutting down the agency’s headquarters — or one of the surveillance state’s chief supporters.

(Article by Eireann Van Natta republished from DailyCaller.com)

Two of President-elect Donald Trump’s top contenders for FBI director are Kash Patel and former Republican Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, according to CNN. Trump is considering replacing FBI Director Christopher Wray before his 10-year term expires.

Kash Patel was formerly a National Security Council official, chief of staff to the secretary of defense and senior adviser to the acting director of national intelligence.

Now that Trump has selected former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to head the CIA and former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as director of national intelligence, Patel has been floated as the next FBI director.

“President-Elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration. Those decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, wrote in a statement to the Daily Caller.

Patel was a vocal critic of the Mueller investigation into “Russian interference” during the 2016 election and has been outspoken against the weaponization of the surveillance state.

In a recent interview, he called for a “24/7 declassification office.”

“What the deep state uses the most to cover up their corruption is an illegal application of the classification system,” Patel stated.

Patel has also proposed shutting down the FBI headquarters and repurposing it as a museum.

“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state,” he said in the interview. “And I’d take the 7,000 employees who work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals.”

Mike Rogers is also reportedly being considered for the position, according to Fox News. A former special agent in the FBI’s Chicago office and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rogers was interviewed in 2017 as a potential replacement for James Comey as FBI director.

Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin defeated Rogers in the Michigan U.S. Senate race in 2024. During the Republican primary, Rogers faced a challenge from former Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, who called him “one of the chief architects of the surveillance state.”

Prior to running for Senate, Rogers was a representative for Michigan’s 8th congressional district. He voted in favor of the Patriot Act in 2001 and supported a short-term extension of the law in 2011. He also voted to extend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 for five years in 2012.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows the government to collect communications from foreigners flagged for national security concerns — even if the communications were with Americans.

In April 2024, Trump urged Congress to terminate an extension of FISA, but the House voted to renew the authorization without a provision requiring a warrant. FISA was used to spy on Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election.

Rogers also voted against an amendment introduced by Amash to end “the blanket collection of records under the Patriot Act.”

The amendment would have prevented agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA), from collecting telephone records of individuals not being investigated under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

However, during his Senate campaign, Rogers argued the Patriot Act needed to be reformed because it had been “misused.”

“We have to rebuild it, making sure you can get those terrorist conversations, but you can’t get U.S. personnel conversations unless you have a warrant and a specific cause for that warrant,” he stated in an interview.

The Caller reached out to Rogers’ Senate campaign but has not heard back at the time of publication.

While Kash Patel’s potential nomination has received some criticism from former intelligence officials, Mike Rogers’ name generated swift backlash from civil libertarians.

“Anyone who appoints Mike Rogers to run the FBI — after he’s arguably been the single most ardent, blind and extremist defender of the US Security State and its surveillance and politicized abuses — should forfeit forever any claim to be interested in combatting those agencies,” left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted.

“Trump 100% needs a loyalist at DOJ,” Ned Ryun tweeted. “For the FBI, Trump 1,000% needs a loyalist. Shouldn’t even be a question: Mike Rogers is not a loyalist. Kash Patel is.”

Other potential candidates for FBI director include Mark Morgan, the former acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Jeff Jensen, a former attorney who led the review of General Mike Flynn’s guilty plea, which was ultimately dismissed.

Trump announced the selection of Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright as the new secretary of energy Saturday.

Read more at: DailyCaller.com