MSNBC / Jen Psaki - Kash Patel's path to Senate confirmation has been remarkably smooth

Plus, a pressure campaign against Joni Ernst and a power grab by North Carolina Republicans in this week’s 3-Minute Read from Jen Psaki.

Dec. 14, 2024, 6:00 AM EST
By Jen Psaki, host of "Inside with Jen Psaki"

Several of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks have courted quite a bit of controversy over the last few weeks. But surprisingly, his pick to become the next director of the FBI hasn’t experienced as much pushback as I expected.

Kash Patel’s book on the so-called deep state, “Government Gangsters,” included an appendix listing political figures he wants to target; he produced a song with the Jan. 6 prison choir; and he penned a Russiagate children’s book to educate kids about Trump’s first impeachment. Patel has openly advocated for shutting down the FBI’s D.C. headquarters, and even Bill Barr — Trump’s former attorney general — once responded to Trump floating Patel as deputy director of the FBI with “over my dead body.”

Yet, Patel’s path to confirmation has been remarkably smooth. “I’ll tell you, I put up some that I thought would be a little more controversial, and they turned out not to be necessarily the ones that are controversial,” Trump noted this week in a Time magazine interview. Trump is more likely to have been talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. there (and I’m shocked he’s also seemingly flying through the process), but Patel fits the bill as well.

With Patel’s confirmation hearing on the horizon, key Republicans like Sens. Thom Tillis and Joni Ernst have praised his commitment to “restoring integrity” to the bureau. Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray has already announced his plans to step down, paving the way for what could be a seismic shift under Patel’s leadership.

For a party that once prided itself on supporting law enforcement, the GOP’s embrace of Patel’s extremist leadership style reveals how far Republicans are willing to go to undermine institutions in service of Donald Trump. And it risks leaving the country potentially more vulnerable to threats like transnational crime and political corruption.

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