Kash Patel running the Federal Bureau of Investigation? Yes, on behalf of millions of my fellow citizens determined to end the weaponization of the justice system against opponents of the Deep State, return the justice system to its constitutional moorings, and uphold the Rule of Law for all equally.
Donald Trump left no one in the dark about his plans for a second Trump administration – he was coming back to Washington intent on uprooting the Deep State and overturning the permanent bureaucracy. With his pick for FBI director, he has shown that he is serious about draining The Swamp.
That the system has lost its moorings is beyond argument. I have personal experience in this arena – as the leader of the nation’s largest national Tea Party organization, I and my organization had to fight to survive being targeted by Lois Lerner and her cronies at the Internal Revenue Service. Threatened by a grassroots citizen uprising generated by massive and reckless government spending, they threw the most feared agency of the federal government against its own citizens, who were doing nothing more threatening than exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights to assemble peacefully, speak freely, and petition their government.
That targeting went on for years. Individuals were ordered by agents of the federal government to share with them the contents of the prayers they had opened their meetings with and turn over lists of books they had discussed; small business owners who had the gumption to stand up for their beliefs were targeted for personal and business audits by the IRS and extra-intrusive inspections by ATF and other government agencies.
No one was ever held accountable – not even Lois Lerner, who ran the Exempt Organizations division of the IRS and oversaw the targeting. After a two-year sham “investigation” by the FBI – an “investigation” in which none of the victims were ever questioned – the Eric Holder-led Department of Justice announced that no charges would be filed against anyone.
Even years after Lerner publicly acknowledged her wrongdoing, the permanent bureaucracy at the Department of Justice was still refusing to acknowledge how the Deep State had targeted American citizens for their political beliefs. I know, because I saw the look in then-newly-confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ eyes when I met with him in the fall of 2017 to discuss the targeting scandal. Despite his position as the top man at DOJ, he was totally unaware of the particulars of the scandal. Even though he knew he would be meeting with me, the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, to discuss a scandal in which groups with “tea party” or “patriots” in their name had been specifically targeted, his staff had failed to brief him fully on just what the IRS had done.
It was a terribly unsettling experience, and it left a permanent mark.
Of course, mine is but one story of abuse at the hands of a permanent bureaucracy that believes itself immune to the comings and goings of the elected and appointed officials to whom the permanent bureaucracy properly owes its allegiance.
Others have been abused more recently, and more severely – many of the January 6 defendants, for instance, who committed no acts of violence; or the parents who showed up at school board meetings to protest their children’s curricula, and were intimidated by the DOJ as a result; or the pro-life activist who was wrongly accused of physically assaulting a clinic escort, and who had to endure an FBI raid on his home and an arrest in front of his children as a means to intimidate him and other pro-life activists.
It's out of hand. It’s been that way for too long. It needs to change, and now.
Kash Patel knows this. He has the right background, and the right experience. Perhaps most importantly, he is committed to changing the culture at the FBI.
He knows the rot at the FBI extends throughout the organization. He has the investigative skills needed to get to the bottom of that culture – he spearheaded the staff of the House Intelligence Committee as it worked to uncover the extent of the corruption in the Russia collusion hoax. He then served in a variety of key national security and intelligence roles in the first Trump administration, with service on the NSC staff, in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and as chief of staff to the Acting Secretary of Defense.
Of course, it’s the very fact that Patel is determined to change the FBI that has the professional left so up in arms in the first place – they don’t oppose him because they think he will fail, they oppose him because they fear he will succeed. That’s precisely the kind of job qualification necessary for success in this endeavor.
Patel is the right man for the job. He should be confirmed, and quickly.
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action