Latest news with #Kash'sCorner
CBS News
22-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Patel once called for ending FBI director's government jet use. Now he won't reveal if he's a frequent flyer.
Two years ago, Kash Patel emerged as a vocal critic of then-FBI Director Christopher Wray for his use of the government's fleet of private aircraft for personal travel. The FBI should "ground Chris Wray's private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country," Patel said during his "Kash's Corner" podcast in 2023. Now, Patel himself is the director, and questions have begun circulating inside the FBI about the degree to which Patel is using governmental airplanes for his personal travels. The FBI declined to share Patel's flight schedule and would not confirm his presence on a number of flights to destinations where he later appeared. During the first weekend in April, for instance, a Boeing 757 owned by the Department of Justice made two round trip flights from Washington to New York. On Saturday, April 5, the narrow-body jet took a 57-minute flight to Stewart International Airport, a short drive from West Point, where Patel made an appearance at a charity hockey event hosted by the FBI. The next day, the jet was back in the air to JFK Airport, landing just hours before Patel resurfaced in box seats next to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and watched Capitals star Alex Ovechkin break the NHL scoring record . The New York Times first reported on Patel's use of FBI aircraft on Sunday. It's unclear if Patel was on these flights — and if he was, whether they were purely personal, work related, or both. But on Monday, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee told CBS News in a statement that he wants the answer to those questions. "The Judiciary Committee must investigate Director Patel's apparent misuse of taxpayer dollars," said U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois. "The American people expect an FBI Director who focuses on the security and safety of the nation, not someone wrapped up in the trappings of the spotlight." FBI directors are required by executive branch policy to use government aircraft for air travel, whether official or personal. That enables them to maintain access to secure communications wherever they travel. And it gives the director the ability to move quickly in an emergency. If the travel is personal, the director must reimburse the government the cost of a commercial coach airfare. When traveling for personal reasons, the director may bring family or friends, but guest travel must be reimbursed to the government as well. Friends or family members are never allowed to fly on FBI aircraft unaccompanied by the director. It is unclear whether Patel has brought friends or family aboard government jets. But Durbin said the use of the plane still has limits and questioned whether the use of the aircraft cut against the Trump administration's professed commitment to rooting out government waste. Patel's use of Gulfstream jets operated by the FBI appears to extend to his frequent trips to Las Vegas, where he has a home, and to Nashville, where Patel's girlfriend, who is a country singer, lives. Sources familiar with Patel's travel confirmed to CBS News that the director was on the plane for several trips captured by FlightRadar24, including a weekend dash to Las Vegas on March 7 and a weekend in Nashville on March 14. It is unclear if he was aboard on Feb. 24, when one of the FBI's Gulfstream 5 jets flew from Manassas, Virginia, where the plane is based, to Nashville, stayed on the ground for an hour and 27 minutes before returning to Manassas. On some occasions, Patel may have traveled for both pleasure and business. An FBI jet flew on March 21 from Washington to Nashville. That day, Patel attended a roundtable meeting with state and local law enforcement officials in Tennessee, and also visited the FBI field office in Nashville. The plane returned to Washington later that afternoon. It is unclear whether he saw Alexis Wilkins, his girlfriend, while he was there. In a statement to CBS News, the FBI said it "does not comment on travel arrangements for security purposes. All ethical guidelines are followed rigorously." Some bureau veterans told CBS News they have been troubled by the frequent use of government aircraft by FBI executives, making the aircraft less available to support operations in line with the primary mission of investigating crimes, chasing spies and preventing terrorist attacks. "Those aircraft have been procured or leased specifically to support operational needs," said Christopher O'Leary, a former senior counterterrorism official at the FBI who has used the planes dozens of times for sensitive missions and critical response. "The concern is that the routine use of them by the director and deputy director for personal travel could take a critical resource offline when they are sometimes needed at a moment's notice." O'Leary and others said they also worry that the use of the planes sets the wrong tone. "It's a bad leadership example," he told CBS News. "All agents are provided an FBI vehicle, and they cannot be used for personal use. They can only be used for going to and from work, for official duties or to respond to a crisis and that is strictly enforced." In 2013, the Government Accountability Office probed the Justice Department's and the FBI's use of the FBI G5 jets for "non-mission purposes." The report that followed laid out how often and for what reasons the planes were used by the attorney general and the FBI director, the costs associated with the flights and the rules and regulations governing them. At the time, the GAO did not find any specific instances of wrongdoing, although it did emphasize the importance of officials being responsible stewards of taxpayer funds when using the planes. Diana Maurer, a director at GAO and author of the 2013 report, told CBS News that the same principles that were at play when the congressional watchdog agency did its review remain relevant today. "I don't know what the current FBI director did or didn't do, and we haven't updated our 2013 report," Mauer said in an interview. "But just because you're allowed to do something doesn't necessarily mean you should." Maurer noted that government officials should not abuse their privileges at the expense of the taxpayer. "Using government aircraft, as FBI Directors are required to do for security reasons, costs significantly more than commercial flights. I hope the FBI and the Department of Justice are considering the implications for taxpayers when the Director uses government aircraft for non-mission purposes." During the years that Wray ran the FBI, his personal use of the jet became a touchstone for conservative critics. Wray occasionally flew from Washington to his hometown of Atlanta, where his family maintained its residence. He drew criticism from Republicans in Congress and some former FBI agents for summoning the G5s to Reagan National Airport from Manassas, a 15-minute flight, rather than being driven 30 miles to the Virginia airport where it maintains a hangar. FBI whistleblower Steven Friend, a close ally of Patel's who was suspended by the bureau over concerns that his views on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol affected his work, criticized Wray in more than a dozen social media posts for his use of the jets. "Chris Wray abuses his @FBI jet privileges because he doesn't like to sit in traffic," Friend wrote in a Dec. 14, 2023, tweet. Wray was also raked over the coals by Republican lawmakers for cutting short a Senate oversight hearing in 2023 to fly on an FBI aircraft to a family vacation in the Adirondacks. (Wray at the time pointed out that he had negotiated the length of the hearing with committee staff.) The chairman of the committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, later questioned Wray's use of the FBI jets and whether it amounted to an abuse of taxpayer money, a suggestion that Wray rejected, noting that he was a "required use traveler," and that he reimbursed the government in every instance he used the planes for personal purposes. A spokesperson for Grassley said the senator is "still waiting on the FBI" for records regarding Wray's use of the jets and criticized Democrats and the media, claiming they never showed "any interest in scrutinizing FBI Directors' travel logs until Kash Patel came on the scene." Grassley's office did not respond to a question about whether the senator would continue his oversight of FBI directors' government jet travel while Patel is director. FBI directors have also at times been sensitive about the potential misuses of the FBI's fleet. In at least one case, a former FBI director went to extraordinary lengths to save the taxpayer money for his air travel. Soon after he became FBI director in 2013, James Comey traveled back and forth to Connecticut where his family was still living. At the time, Washington was in the midst of a heated budget battle with the possibility that government workers would be furloughed and have their paychecks withheld. So, according to two former law enforcement officials, Comey asked President Barack Obama for a special dispensation from the "required use" rule so that he could fly commercial at a much lower cost to the government.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tammy Duckworth Torches Pete Hegseth For Flip-Flopping On Russia And Brings Receipts
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) is calling out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who recently refused on national television to acknowledge Russia as the aggressor in the Ukraine war — but openly did just that during his former tenure as a Fox News host. 'I don't need to get into the characterization of we know who invaded who,' Hegseth said Sunday during an appearance on Fox News. 'We understand the stakes of this game … Does all the finger-pointing and pearl-clutching make peace more likely?' Duckworth, who held Hegseth's feet to the fire during his confirmation hearing last month, took to X on Wednesday with images of him hosting a Fox News segment in March 2022 — under the clear-cut chyron 'Tracking Russia's Invasion of Ukraine.' 'Hegseth says he doesn't know if Russia invaded Ukraine,' she wrote. 'This you?' The defense secretary's blatant about-face has certainly raised eyebrows on social media, as Hegseth seems to be taking his lead from President Donald Trump, who said last week that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 'should have never started' the war. Hegseth himself made an impassioned plea in March 2022 for the U.S. to more fastidiously support Ukraine against Russian aggression, one month after Russian President Vladimir Putin led the invasion. 'What's at stake is repelling an authoritarian who basically is saying I want the Soviet Union back, I want Ukraine back, I want Kyiv back,' Hegseth said on Fox News at the time, before urging then-President Joe Biden to act quickly regarding Ukraine military aid. Trump brazenly confirmed earlier this month that he's only interested in helping Ukraine if the U.S. gains access to the country's rare earth minerals, per The Associated Press. He was previously accused of winning the 2016 presidential election with help from the Kremlin. On Monday, the U.S. voted with North Korea, Belarus and Sudan against a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's invasion. The Trump administration thus diverged from traditional U.S. allies in the matter, including the U.K., Germany and France. Hegseth's glaring reversal on Russia, meanwhile, spawned genuine outrage on social media from voters who are still baffled that Trump appointed a former Fox News host as his defense secretary — and made 'Kash's Corner' podcast host Kash Patel his FBI director. 'I can't believe we have a gameshow host running the country, a fox news anchor running the military, and now an extremist podcaster helping direct the FBI,' one user wrote Wednesday in response to Duckworth's post. 'Absolute joke of a country.' U.S. And Ukraine Near Rare Earth Minerals Deal, Officials Say Trump Expresses Hope Russia's War In Ukraine Is Nearing An Endgame What Trump's Recent Ukraine Statements Ignore About The Reality On The Ground
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kash Patel called out Elon Musk multiple times for getting rich off taxpayer money in resurfaced interviews
Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the FBI, spent years criticizing Elon Musk in public interviews and conversations, a new report reveals. Patel, who hosted the podcast Kash's Corner, has called Musk a monopolist, claimed he mass-harvested data and accused him of making his fortune from federal contracts funded by taxpayer dollars, according to Rolling Stone. One example shows Patel claiming Musk is the 'biggest' Department of Defense contractor during a December 2021 Fox News interview. While Musk isn't the largest, his company SpaceX does have billions of dollars in federal contracts, Rolling Stone reports. 'I mean, we're all paying for it, this is why he's so rich,' Patel said in the 2021 interview. Then, in a 2022 episode of his podcast, Patel claimed Musk's takeover of Twitter (now X) gave the world's richest man too much access to Americans' data, according to Rolling Stone. 'He's already got Tesla, he's already got the SpaceX program and the government DOD contracts, which I believe to be the largest portion of his income,' Patel claimed. 'And now he'll have Twitter. So what scares me is, you want to talk about a monopoly, he is the ultimate monopoly.' Patel went on to claim, seemingly without evidence, that Musk may sell the data to the Chinese Communist Party, according to Rolling Stone. But despite this bitter history, Musk publicly endorsed Patel to lead the FBI under Trump earlier this month. Trump announced Patel's nomination to lead the agency in December. Patel is a staunch ally of Trump's and has promised a team of 'all-American patriots' across government will 'come after' members of the media he claims 'lied about American citizens' and 'helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.' 'We're going to come after you, whether it's criminal or civilly, we'll figure that out,' Patel said on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. Patel is also a fervent conspiracy theorist, promoting several false theories including suggesting that the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots were planned by federal agents, Rolling Stone reports. Lawmakers have also shown concerns about Patel's conspiracies. During a Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Dick Durbin about Patel's knowledge of Stew Peters, a far-right podcaster. 'Are you familiar with Stew Peters?' the Democrat asked. 'Not off the top of my head,' Patel responded. 'You made eight separate appearances on his podcast,' Durbin shot back. 'He promoted outrageous conspiracy theories and worked with a prominent neo-Nazi.' Patel has also suggested he wants the FBI's authority to be severely restricted after Republicans claimed the agency has improperly targeted conservatives under the leadership of departing FBI Director Christopher Wray. Patel previously served as chief of staff at the Department of Defense during Trump's first term, deputy director of National Intelligence and senior director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. His confirmation vote is expected in the coming days after the Senate voted to end debate on Tuesday.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘We're All Paying for It': Kash Patel Called Out Elon Musk for Getting Rich Off Taxpayers
Kash Patel is set to become the latest of President Donald Trump's unfit and unqualified loyalists confirmed for a leadership role in Washington, with Senate Republicans ready and willing to install the QAnon promoter and 2020 election denier as the next director of the FBI. Once he becomes head of the powerful law enforcement agency, Patel is sure to go after Trump's personal enemies, but he may have trouble targeting one of his own: tech oligarch and tightly embedded Trump whisperer Elon Musk. During the Biden administration, Patel — a former intelligence and Defense Department official under Trump, who had considered elevating him to the top of the FBI or CIA in the closing days of his first term only to be dissuaded by Cabinet members — made plenty of media appearances and hosted a podcast, Kash's Corner. (The show aired on EpochTV, part of the far-right Epoch Media Group, which is known to amplify conspiracy theories and misinformation.) In the course of various interviews and conversations, Patel repeatedly criticized Musk, labeling him a monopolist, accusing him of mass data collection, advocating for more aggressive government oversight of his companies, and arguing that his wealth came from federal contracts, i.e., taxpayer dollars. More from Rolling Stone Trump Orders Independent Agencies to Follow His Read of the Law, Not the Courts Elon Musk's Empty Hunt for Condoms Is Causing Real Harm Eric Adams' Lawyers Offered Trump DOJ an 'Ever-Present Partner' 'He is literally launching this thing called satlink, which almost no one knows about, but he's been building for five years, which is free Wi-Fi for the world,' Patel said on Greg Gutfeld's Fox News show in December 2021, referring to Starlink, the telecom subsidiary of Musk's SpaceX. He explained, 'I mean, we're all paying for it, this is why he's so rich,' going on to call the billionaire the 'biggest' contractor for the Department of Defense. (While Musk is not quite the largest Pentagon contractor, SpaceX does have some $22 billion in government contracts.) Patel added, 'I'll never get hired from him now.' The amount of federal funds channeled to Musk's corporate empire is under renewed scrutiny as his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) slashes away at the administrative state and directs the firings of tens of thousands of federal workers in what it claims is a campaign to reduce wasteful spending. Musk's highly public role in directing and championing the cuts has also raised questions about his glaring conflicts of interest, based on his lucrative contracts, but Musk, Trump, and other White House officials have casually brushed aside concerns about transparency and corruption. In 2022, Patel took issue with Musk's $44 billion takeover of Twitter (now X), asserting on Kash's Corner that the CEO had too much control over Americans' private data and could even make it available to the Chinese Communist Party. He also took another shot at Musk's government contracts. 'He's already got Tesla, he's already got the SpaceX program and the government DOD contracts, which I believe to be the largest portion of his income,' Patel said. 'And now he'll have Twitter. So what scares me is, you want to talk about a monopoly, he is the ultimate monopoly.' 'Is he just going to buy everything up and then become one ginormous trust, for lack of a better word, a monopoly, which is supposedly illegal under our law, under antitrust laws?' Patel wondered. 'And then what's he going to do with all the data? That's my concern: the data collection.' He speculated, 'What do you do with everyone's personal information? Do you allow the [Chinese Communist Party] to have backdoors like other companies, like TikTok, have done in the past, and sell Americans' data or provide Americans' data directly to the CCP for future use against Americans and American interest?' That episode of Kash's Corner found Patel urging lawmakers to take a stronger look at Musk's access to Americans' personal information. 'I think Congress is going to have a lot of oversight to do,' he said before expressing skepticism that Musk was really committed to turning Twitter into a 'free speech platform free of censorship.' Patel was especially livid regarding the 'Twitter Files,' a dud exposé series from several journalists with whom Musk shared internal company documents that supposedly showed how Democrats in government had ordered the company to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020. The materials included no evidence of this, and Patel was soon convinced that Musk was actually in on the alleged 'coverup' of the involvement of the FBI and Justice Department in 'rigging' the 2020 election by suppressing the story. 'I've been blasting Elon, and it's fine, I don't really care,' Patel said in an appearance at Turning Point USA's America Fest convention in December 2022. 'I don't need him as a friend. But this partial release of documents is almost a version of censorship itself.' That same month, he went on the podcast War Room with Steve Bannon, by far the most outspoken Musk hater in MAGA world, and accused Twitter's new owner of running a 'disinformation' operation by withholding company files from the public. If Patel has lately made an effort to play nice with Musk, the most influential person in Trump's orbit over the past several months, it hasn't been all that visible: The nominee for FBI director isn't posting in support of Musk or DOGE on X. Musk, however, earlier this month endorsed Patel to lead the bureau, sharing an X post that claimed his confirmation would cause many agents to quit. He wrote: 'Confirm Kash now.' With Patel expected to oversee a purge of FBI employees seen as insufficiently loyal to Trump or involved in Capitol riot prosecutions — which may already be underway — he and Musk are likely to find themselves on the same page despite any past differences. Patel has suggested that the Jan. 6 insurrection was planned by federal agents, while Musk has embraced false narratives about Trump supporters remaining peaceful as they stormed the building to halt the certification of Biden's 2020 election victory, and is pushing for mass layoffs across federal agencies. In some cases, the Trump administration has scrambled to rehire employees deemed essential only once they were dismissed. But outside a shared crusade against the anti-Trump 'deep state,' points of friction between Patel and Musk could certainly persist. We're just a month into the second MAGA regime, and the schisms should only multiply from here. Best of Rolling Stone Every Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best The United States of Weed Gaming Levels Up
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kash Patel's podcast persona: Staunch Trump defender and fierce critic of the FBI he could soon lead
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI agents who searched Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate found boxes of classified documents in his office and storage room and retrieved sensitive government secrets about nuclear systems and weapons capabilities. One person unmoved by the gravity of the allegations: Kash Patel. Days after Trump's June 2023 indictment on charges of hoarding the documents, Patel insisted to listeners of his 'Kash's Corner' podcast that Trump was permitted under a law known as the Presidential Records Act to take classified records with him when he left the White House. 'When you're president and you leave, you can take whatever you want,' Patel said, advancing an argument later adopted by Trump's lawyers but dismissed as meritless by the Justice Department. 'And when you take it, whether it's classified or not, it's yours.' It's but one example of how Patel positioned himself as a steadfast Trump loyalist well before the president picked him to run the FBI. An Associated Press review of more than 100 podcasts that Patel hosted or on which he was interviewed over the last four years reveals how Patel has habitually denigrated the investigations into Trump, sowed doubt in the criminal justice system, criticized the decision-making of the institution he's been asked to lead and professed sympathy for jailed Jan 6. rioters. The vast catalog of provocative public statements, sometimes made in the company of like-minded FBI antagonists, provides an unusually extensive record of a nominee's unvarnished and controversial worldviews. At his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, Democrats are likely to seize on Patel's often explosive — and conspiracy-riddled — commentary, which is unprecedented in volume, tone and substance for a potential FBI leader. While those critics say his views make him unfit for the job, his supporters argue the FBI needs someone as brash as Patel to shake up the agency. Asked to respond to his comments, Patel spokeswoman Erica Knight said the nominee 'looks forward to his upcoming hearing as an opportunity to highlight his extensive experience and present the truth to the American people in a comprehensive and meaningful way.' The AP's review found that Patel frequently expressed the same views — or iterations of them — on various podcasts: 'Gangsters' 'Those same criminal gangsters at the FBI and DOJ are running this Mar-a-Lago raid investigation,' Patel said in August 2022 on his show, 'Kash's Corner,' for The Epoch Times, a pro-Trump media company that has been a key online supporter of the president and spreader of conspiracy theories. "Gangsters' is a favored Patel term for federal investigators he perceives as tainted by anti-Trump bias. It's even part of the title of his 2023 book, 'Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth and the Battle for Our Democracy.' Patel has sought to distinguish his dim view of the FBI's leadership, direction and decision-making from what he says is his support for the rank-and-file. But his harsh rhetoric about the bureau could nonetheless create an awkward dynamic if he's confirmed to lead the 38,000-person premier federal law enforcement agency. The name-calling in this instance — he's also called intelligence officials 'bozos' and 'Muppets' — is consistent with Patel's scathingly critical perspective of the investigations into Trump's interference in the 2020 election and his retention of classified documents at his Florida resort after he left office. Trump faced felony charges in the two cases, but the indictments were abandoned by prosecutors after he won the November election because of Justice Department policy prohibiting the federal prosecution of a sitting president. Patel's reference to investigators as the 'same criminal gangsters' is part of a persistent effort to draw a straight line between the documents probe and a 2016 investigation into Trump and Russian election interference, notwithstanding significant differences in FBI and Justice Department personnel in the two inquiries. Patel rocketed to prominence as a House staffer through his criticism of the Russia investigation, which he's dubbed 'one of the biggest conspiracies ever perpetuated against a presidential candidate and then president." He's made a name for himself in MAGA circles by seeking to expose what he has described as misconduct in how the probe was pursued. Later reviews by the Justice Department inspector general and a specially appointed prosecutor identified significant flaws with that investigation, though neither presented evidence that partisan bias had guided specific decisions. 'Baseless prosecutions' 'We need to really educate the world on the weaponization of justice that occurred on January 6th,' Patel said in January 2024 on 'The Alec Lace Show," as he called the prosecutions of U.S. Capitol rioters 'baseless." The FBI arrested more than 1,500 people arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and many of them pleaded guilty to serious crimes. The recently departed FBI director, Christopher Wray, bluntly labeled the violence as 'domestic terrorism' and has called the attack emblematic of a rapidly growing threat of homegrown extremism. Patel, like Trump, has taken a different view, saying the rioters have been mistreated by the criminal justice system. A former federal public defender and prosecutor, he has called them 'political prisoners' and offered on at least one occasion to represent them for free. Patel will almost certainly be asked if he supports Trump's sweeping grant of clemency to all Jan. 6 defendants. The pardons, sentence commutations and indictment dismissals upended the largest investigation in Justice Department history, benefiting even those found guilty of violent attacks on police, along with leaders of far-right extremist groups who plotted to keep Trump in power. Patel's support for the defendants has included more than just rhetoric. He's boasted about having helped produce a song, 'Justice for All,' that was recorded over a prison phone line, sung by a group of Jan. 6 defendants and overlaid with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. 'The powerful thing about it,' he said in a 2023 podcast, 'is the people who have been impacted most are the ones raising awareness.' He's also talked up a right-wing conspiracy theory that Ray Epps, an Arizona man arrested in connection with Jan. 6, was actually an undercover operative for the FBI — something Epps has adamantly denied and prosecutors have described as false. And he's been openly skeptical about the FBI's use of confidential informants related to Jan. 6 at a time when conspiracy theorists have suggested, inaccurately, that the bureau helped instigate the violence. The department's internal watchdog said in a report last month that no undercover FBI agents were in the crowd on Jan. 6, and that though more than two dozen FBI informants were in Washington that day, none was tasked by the FBI with entering the building or breaking the law. 'Hold him in contempt in a jail cell' 'It's up to Congress, who has law enforcement capabilities, to go out there, arrest Chris Wray and hold him in contempt in a jail cell until the document's produced,' Patel said on 'Kash's Corner' in June 2023. Patel in recent years has mused about the idea of Wray, who stepped down as FBI director on Jan. 19, being arrested for the FBI's failure to promptly turn over records subpoenaed by Congress — an outcome he's acknowledged as extreme but one he contends would befall less prominent people who ignored lawmaker demands for documents. That position could come back to haunt Patel, particularly if Democrats take back a chamber of Congress in 2026. He's also suggested that Congress could withhold or restrict 'pockets of money' to induce cooperation with its document demands. 'You ground Chris Wray's private jet that he pays for with taxpayer dollars to hop around the country. You take away the fancy new fleet of cars from DOJ that they're going to use to shuffle around executives,' he said in 2023 on 'Kash's Corner." 'You stop the construction of new buildings.' What will a Director Patel say if Democrats push to limit funding for his flights on FBI jets? 'There'll be an investigation into members of Congress' 'Once President Trump hopefully gets back in power, there'll be an investigation into members of Congress who destroyed and withheld evidence from law enforcement agencies," Patel said in March 2024 on "In the Litter Box w/ Jewels and Catturd." Patel's stated desire to rid the government of 'conspirators' has raised alarms he could direct the FBI to target Trump's adversaries, even though long-established FBI guidelines are meant to protect against investigative abuses and require that criminal inquiries be rooted in a legitimate purpose. Like Trump, Patel has channeled particular ire toward the House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol. He told Catturd, a right-wing social media personality whose real name is Phillip Buchanan, that a Trump victory could result in investigations of lawmakers who have committed 'federal felonies' and 'covered up the truth from the American people.' That rhetoric wasn't lost on former President Joe Biden, who on his final day in office preemptively pardoned members of that committee, as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci and retired Gen. Mark Milley. Fauci and House lawmakers are just some of the targets Patel has excoriated. His book includes a list of people he identifies as 'members of the Executive Branch Deep State,' including former Attorney General William Barr — who disputed Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — and Andrew McCabe, the former FBI acting director and a top figure in the Russia investigation. Ahead of Thursday's hearing, Senate Judiciary Democrats circulated a social media post that they said Patel shared in 2022 in which he was depicted as taking a chainsaw to news organizations and high-profile members of Congress. Democrats will make the prospect of reprisal center stage at Patel's confirmation hearing, something they foreshadowed with pointed questions about him directed at Trump's attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, during her own hearing this month. When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, asked Bondi if she would have hired someone who had an 'enemies list' into her office when she was Florida attorney general, she replied: 'Senator, to cut to the chase, you're clearly talking about Kash Patel. I don't believe he has an enemies list.' 'Toilet rag disinformation animal' A 'toilet rag' is how Patel described Vice Media on a podcast when it declared bankruptcy two years ago. He has frequently attacked media organizations and reporters, accusing them of publishing 'fake news.' He has also threatened reporters with serious consequences for crossing Trump. 'We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,' Patel told Steve Bannon, a Trump ally who served four months in prison for defying a congressional subpoena and who has also warned about retribution against Trump adversaries, in December 2023. Patel later backed off some of his statements about the media, telling NBC News last February that reporters are 'invaluable' and that his threat referred only to those who have broken the law. But he'll face pressure from his party to go after journalists, as well as election officials and activists that Republicans have accused of crimes. ___ Associated Press Artificial Intelligence Product Manager Ernest Kung contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP's democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Eric Tucker, Ali Swenson And Aaron Kessler, The Associated Press
