Slicing The FBI, Disemboweling The Media, All Part of Trump Revenge 2024
Please tell trump that J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon are long gone and that if trump is allowed to extinguish the “deep state” and politicize and disembowel the FBI he will undermine the critical role of the FBI and disillusion potential agents from joining the storied bureau.
The old bumper sticker from the 1960s read, “The next time you need help, call a hippie.” If trump’s nightmare FBI becomes reality, the bumper stickers will alert “The next time you spot a spy, call Kash, Patel, that is.”
Trump plans to nominate as FBI director Kash Patel, the unqualified, QAnon conspiracist, ultra MAGA loyalist, promoter of trump’s “big lie” about voter fraud and long-time trump sycophant. Patel’s sole qualification is his toxic allegiance to trump. He has said that his primary role as FBI leader would be avenger to prosecute trump’s enemies, including members of the media, who trump believes were part of a “deep state” that led to trump’s numerous indictments and his election loss in 2020.
The nomination for FBI chief requires Senate approval although trump could name Patel as an interim director, without Senate concurrence.
Trump has enlisted Patel and a number of handpicked allies to help in his lifetime antagonism against the press, calling then “fake news” and “enemy of the American people.” He has threatened to use his official powers to shackle media companies he does not favor. Trump’s acknowledged goal is to discredit the press so that when they write negative stories about him, no one will believe them.
Trump has called for boycotts of news organizations and changes to libel laws to restrict critical reporting on himself. He has filed numerous, unsuccessful libel suits. Trump also tried to deny White House press credentials for reporters and news media whose stories did not toe the trump line.
Trump made his plans crystal clear in a September post on his Truth Social network.
“I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events,” Trump posted. “Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country.”
Last year, Patel was a guest on War Room, a podcast by trump provocateur Steve Bannon. Patel vowed that he would be the furthest thing from non-political in running the FBI and that trump’s enemies would be targeted if the former president returned to power.
“We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,” Patel said. “Yes, we’re going to come after people in the media. We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,” over the 2020 election, which trump lost to Biden.
If Patel’s nomination is scrubbed, he could live off his long line of Patel MAGA merch and Nocovidium, a supplement he peddles that he claims can reverse the COVID-19 vaccine. Nocovidium is made by a company called Warrior Essentials and includes the hardly exotic ingredients of turmeric extract, green tea extract and vitamin D. Or Patel might fall back on the royalties of his 2023 memoir “Government Gangsters” where he called for a purge of government employees who undermine the president’s agenda. Trump hailed Patel’s memoir as a “blueprint to take back the White House.”
The FBI was established in 1908 and is the nation’s domestic intelligence and security service and the principal federal law enforcement agency, with jurisdiction over more than 200 categories of federal crimes. The agency employs more than 35,000 people, including special agents and support professionals such as intelligence analysts, language specialists, scientists, and information technology specialists. Its fiscal 2023 budget was $10.8 billion.
The FBI director reports to the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence. It has jurisdiction over around 800 federal laws and lists its top priorities as:
- Protect the United States from terrorist attacks
- Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations, espionage, and cyber operations
- Combat significant cybercriminal activity
- Combat public corruption at all levels
- Protect civil rights
- Combat transnational criminal enterprises
- Combat major white-collar crime
- Combat significant violent crime
That’s it. Nowhere is it listed that the FBI can help to investigate and prosecute the president’s enemies, which is exactly what trump and his would-be FBI Director Patel want to do.
Hoover served for more than 36 years until his death in 1972. In 1976, in response to Hoover’s dictatorial, politicized and lengthy tenure and the scandals of the Watergate era, the Congress limited the term of future FBI directors to 10 years.
The FBI director can be removed by the president before the 10 year term expires. The president can nominate a new director, requiring Senate confirmation or he could name an interim director who does not require senate approval.
During trump’s first term, he wanted to name Patel as FBI director to replace James Comey who trump fired for refusing to quash the federal investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 presidential election. Comey served for three years and 247 days, before trump replaced him with interim director Andrew McCabe. President Joe Biden named Christopher Wray as the current director.
Trump wanted Patel to serve as deputy director of the CIA or FBI in the final months of his presidency. The president backed off after then-CIA Director Gina Haspel and then-Attorney General William Barr threatened to resign over the move. Barr vowed that Patel would help lead the FBI “over my dead body.” General Mark Milley said he feared that Patel would break the law for trump. McCabe said 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. If you enter into that position with nothing more than a desire to disrupt and destroy the organization, there is a lot of damage someone like Kash Patel could do.”
Disrupt and destroy are the sweetest words for trump and Patel.
Patel served in the previous trump administration as chief of staff to the acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, from Nov. 9, 2020, until the end of trump’s reign on January 20, 2021. Miller had replaced Mark Esper, who trump fired on Nov. 9, 2020, six days after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Miller was ;ater accused of obstructing the transition to the Biden administration, which Miller denied.
After he lost his federal job, Patel founded a nonprofit that provides legal assistance to individuals prosecuted for involvement in the January 6, 2021 insurrection by trump supporters.
Patel also has given trump a run for his money in the merch business. Trump sells trump guitars, trump bibles, trump sneakers and everything else trump. Patel is selling MAGA merch under the “K$H” label. He has written children’s books about “King Donald” battling his enemies, “Hillary Queenton” and “Sleepy Joe” and “Comma-la-la-la.”
Patel also formed the Kash Foundation, which ostensibly provides legal defense funds to whistleblowers. The organization came under fire last year after Patel paid the legal fees for two witnesses to testify before the House Judiciary Committee to prove the federal government had been “weaponized” against conservatives.
The Kash Foundation revenues rose to $1.3 million in 2023, skyrocketing past the 2022 revenues of $182,000. The foundation listed expenses of $674,000, with about $425,000 spent on advertising and marketing.
Patel also collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from the 2024 trump campaign and from Friends of Matt Gaetz, the campaign committee for the former House Republican from Florida, who withdrew from consideration as trump’s attorney general after criticism over allegations of sex trafficking and drug use.
Another ally in trump’s war on the media is Brendan Carr, trump’s pick to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Carr is currently a member of the FCC and the appointment of director does not require Senate approval.
During a September FCC hearing, Carr stayed quiet regarding trump’s suggestion that ABC should lose its broadcast licenses because two of its journalists fact-checked him during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. In October, Carr went after NBC after Harris was a guest on “Saturday Night Live.” Carr called it “a clear and blatant effort to evade the equal time rule.” Carr was wrong as NBC had given trump equal time that same weekend. Soon after, Carr attacked CBS for airing an edited interview with Harris during “60 Minutes.” He claimed CBS stations may have vioilated the FCC’s news-distortion policy.
Carr wrote a chapter for Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s authoritarian roadmap for a conservative administration. Carr called for an expansion of the FCC’s authority to regulate the speech of social-media platforms. He also wants to ban TikTok, and revoke social-media companies of their rights to moderate content, which would force them to host toxic racism, misogyny and other forms of hatred favored by the MAGA world.
Trump has accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the Justice Department for political ends. But trump’s own Justice Department increased leak investigations and prosecutions of journalists’ sources of classified information, including secret seizures of phone records of reporters at The Post, the Times and CNN.
After trump begins his second years in office, he may move to punish reporters who won’t name confidential sources or prosecute them under the Espionage Act for reporting about classified information. He could order the IRS to audit journalists’ taxes and remove the tax-exempt status of nonprofit national, regional and local news organizations.
Trump and his cronies could harass reporters and news organizations with costly, nuisance libel suits. Justice Department guidelines for police treatment of reporters covering demonstrations could be rescinded.
He also may follow up on past promises to change libel laws although to do so would require that rulings set aside the landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision.
It won’t be hard to guess at the potential media targets for his revenge administration. They are probably reflected in the many lawsuits his cronies have filed.
In the week before the 2024 election, trump’s lawyers planned to sue multiple news outlets they alleged were biased against the Republican nominee and had defamed him or attempted to sway the election in favor of Kamala Harris. Attorneys for trump wrote the N.Y. Times and Penguin Random House, demanding $10 billion in damages for “false and defamatory statements” about trump.
The letter accused the Times of being “a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democratic Party” that employs “industrial-scale libel against political opponents.” The Times responded that it stood by its reporting.
On the same day of the letter, trump’s team filed a federal lawsuit against CBS Broadcasting, demanding $10 billion in damages, alleging that the network tried to influence the election by favorably editing an interview with Harris. The complaint said that CBS “doctored” a Harris exchange over U.S. relations with Israel as part of an effort to “confuse, deceive, and mislead the public” about her alleged weaknesses as a candidate.
CBS responded that trump’s claims were false.
“The Interview was not doctored; and ’60 Minutes’ did not hide any part of the Vice President’s answer to the question at issue. ’60 Minutes’ fairly presented the Interview to inform the viewing audience, and not to mislead it,” CBS wrote
On Nov. 5, trump’s campaign mouthpiece, Chris LaCivita, demanded that the Daily Beast correct articles that reported that LaCivita raised $22 million for trump’s reelection. The Daily Beast ran a correction that the correct total was $19.2 million.
Trump’s campaign found the response note insufficient and, said it “does not remedy the overall messaging of the story — which depicts Mr. LaCivita as deceptively pocketing campaign money for his own personal gain and that he was and is on the verge of being ‘fired’ because of it.”
In October, the trump camp filed a complaint that the Washington Post bought advertising to boost readership of negative stories about trump. The lawyers claimed the ads were bought after The Post’s publisher, William Lewis said the newspaper would no longer make presidential endorsements.
In 2022, trump lost a lawsuit against CNN, demanding $475 million in damages for invoking Adolf Hitler in its coverage of trump. A similar suit against the New York Times was dismissed in 2021.
In 2019, the trump campaign sued The Washington Post for defamation over two opinion columns published in 21018 that alleged a connection between the campaign and Russian election interference. The campaign sued the New York Times for another opinion column that made the same claims.
In 2017, trump urged a boycott of CNN as part of his battle against AT&T Inc’s deal to buy CNN’s owner Time Warner Inc.