A retired FBI special agent on Sunday issued a dire warning to Kash Patel, a loyal ally of Donald Trump, that the newly elected president is reportedly under surveillance to become the agency’s new director.
“He has no experience leading an organization, a Cub Scout troop no less, to put him in front of the leading law enforcement agency in the United States – and some consider the world – to put him in charge of so many employees,” he said. Daniel Brunner in an interview with CNN’s Jessica Dean.
Trump considers firing FBI Director Christopher Wray end his ten-year term prematurely to pave the way for Patel’s appointment to the post, CNN reported this on Friday.
This move would be in line with the president-elect’s interest in fulfilling government roles with loyalists to go after his perceived enemies.
Brunner told Dean that Patel — who served as acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller’s chief of staff during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack — has no experience for the post and that he would instead follow Trump’s vindictive orders.
“You’re in charge of tens of thousands of employees, both special agents and analysts, everyone who enforces the law, the federal law on the books that supports the Constitution of the United States,” he said.
“Putting someone like Kash Patel in the position of director of the FBI is, in my opinion, extremely, extremely dangerous, because you just alluded to the fact that his resume is not traditional.”
Brunner added that Patel has “clearly stated” that he wants “revenge” on those who investigated Trump and his allies.
Patel suggested during an August appearance on the right-wing Real America’s Voice network that Republicans are bringing FBI officials “for contempt of Congress chargesbefore entertaining how he would run the agency.
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“One of my biggest personal recommendations is that you close the FBI headquarters building and open it the next day as the Museum of the Deep State,” Patel said.
Brunner warned that Patel would do a “tremendous amount of damage” to the interior of the FBI, along with employees who put their names on “certain documents.”
“There will be hundreds of employees who are wrongly fired or have their security clearance revoked just because he feels it’s something he has to do. So I think he will be very, very dangerous,” he said.