We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

The possibility of President Elect Trump putting Kash Patel into a leadership role at the Federal Bureau of Investigation has the ex-intel community talking points flowing, and the word of the week is “dangerous.”

Advertisement

A former agent recently used that word in an interview on CNN:

Former FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner said if President-elect Trump chooses loyalist and former Trump administration aide Kash Patel to lead the FBI, it would do “massive damage” to the agency.

“Putting someone like Kash Patel in the position of director of the FBI is, I believe, extremely, extremely dangerous because … his resume isn’t traditional,” Brunner said Sunday on CNN.

Brunner later added that Patel “has no experience leading an organization, no less a Cub Scout pack.”

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe also thinks Patel in a leadership role at the FBI would be dangerous. Considering the source, this is, in actuality, an unintentional endorsement of Patel:

Former Trump FBI deputy director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said Thursday that Rogers would be a “totally reasonable, logical selection” to nominate to lead the agency, pointing to his knowledge of the intelligence community and his experience at the FBI. But McCabe cautioned against empowering Patel, saying on CNN’s “The Source” that “no part of the FBI’s mission is safe with Kash Patel in any position of leadership in the FBI. And certainly not in the deputy director’s job.” 

“It’s inconceivable to me that an outsider with no experience in the organization, no knowledge of the work and the scope of authority that’s involved there could perform adequately,” McCabe, who Trump fired from his post hours before his retirement in 2018, said.

Recommended

Advertisement

To paraphrase Bill Clinton, “it depends on what your definition of ‘FBI’s mission’ is.”

Patel was on Fox News over the weekend and explained why people like McCabe and others don’t want him in an FBI leadership role (video via @tomselliot): 

If people like McCabe, Comey, Strzok and Page think Patel would be a “danger” at the FBI then sign us up!

Most media interviews with McCabe say he’s a former FBI employee, but they don’t really like to explain why that is. Not that we’re surprised.

Advertisement

And yet many in the media who call themselves “journalists” have no problem interviewing that person as a principled expert on all things FBI.