The (perceived) persecution of Kash Patel

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The (perceived) persecution of Kash Patel
A sense of persecution is what all of the Trump nominees for law enforcement, intelligence and military share

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published December 2, 2024 9:33AM (EST)


(Salon) Once upon a time, there was a Trump toadie who wrote a fatuous children's book about a good king being persecuted by an evil queen named Hillary Queenton until one day a virtuous wizard comes to his rescue and saves the day:

Link to tweet

One might not think too much of such a silly little project except the "writer" of those books, Kash Patel, has been nominated to run the FBI in the new Trump administration. The story is a thinly veiled narrative of Patel's original claim to fame, working for former congressman Devin Nunes's House Intelligence Committee investigation into the origins of the Russia probe following the 2016 election. The books weren't written to entertain kids. They were written to cozy up to Trump and demonstrate Patel's loyalty by literally portraying Trump as a king.

....(snip)....

All of this assumes that Trump fires the current director Christopher Wray, his own appointee, who still has three years to go on his term. That job is unique in that it was designed to be so above partisan politics that the 10-year term can extend even beyond an 8-year presidency. Presidents have the power to dismiss them but until Trump fired James Comey because he wasn't "loyal" enough to drop the investigation into Russian interference, there had only been one other instance and it involved substantial ethical violations. Trump apparently plans to fire Wray for no reason at all except that he wants to install a personal henchman in the job. The idea of an apolitical FBI Director is no longer operative. From now on, they will always be seen as members of the president's team, something that really was not true until Trump. It almost seems quaint to think about it now.

....(snip)....

The Atlantic published the definitive profile of Patel last year, a piece by Elaina Plott Calabro that delved deeply into his early years growing up in New York and time spent working as a lawyer. He was a public defender for a while and then became a federal prosecutor. Early on he was apparently considered a bit of a showboating lawyer but generally a nice guy. But something happened along the way (beyond his burning ambition). He found himself embarrassed in the courtroom one day and developed an intense grievance against the Justice Department for allegedly failing to defend him in the press. There were other perceived slights that followed and that resentment seems to have fermented into a poisonous hostility toward the institution and the government itself. Like Trump, he believes that he's been persecuted and oppressed and is determined to wreak revenge on all those he believes have wronged him — and wronged the man to whom he has pledged his total fealty, Donald Trump. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/12/02/the-perceived-persecution-of-kash-patel/