Trump’s FBI Pick Tries To Unwind 4 Years Of Conspiracy Theorizing And J6 Support

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI tried to downplay his history of backing pro-Trump conspiracy theories ― including the outlandish claim that the FBI had incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol ― and his support for violent domestic terrorists who assaulted police officers that day as he appeared before a Senate panel Thursday.

Kash Patel, if confirmed, would bring to the office a 60-name enemies list of Trump’s critics — a scenario unheard of at the nation’s top law enforcement agency since reforms made in the 1970s following the abuses of power committed by its founding director, J. Edgar Hoover.

Patel on Thursday claimed that his list of “deep state” enemies — published as an appendix in a 2023 book with the caution that it was not “exhaustive” — was not an enemies list at all.

Asked repeatedly if he intended to investigate those named in his book — many of whom are Republicans who broke from or did not show total loyalty to Trump — Patel never answered directly.

“I have no plans in going backwards,” Patel said multiple times.

Patel’s efforts to back away from his recent past resulted in a number of extraordinary exchanges with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, particularly around his key role in glorifying violent Trump followers who assaulted police officers in his name in 2021.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic ranking member of the committee from Illinois, asked Patel about a “Justice for All” recording that featured inmates of the District of Columbia jail in March 2023. Seventeen of the 20 behind bars on the day of the recording were charged with assaulting police officers, with some already having been convicted.

“My understanding is that the performers on this ‘J6 Choir’ were the rioters who are in prison,” Durbin said.

“I’m not aware of that, sir,” Patel responded.

Durbin followed up, “You weren’t aware of who was on the record?”

Patel answered, “No, senator.”

California Democrat Sen. Adam Schiff later returned to the issue, asking if Patel truly did not know anything about the recording, then why did he tell longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon that “we went to a studio and recorded it, mastered it, digitized it and put it out as a song”?

Answered Patel: “I was using the proverbial ‘we.’ … I did not know about the violent offenders.”

Soon after the song was released for download, Patel boasted of its success. “Buh Bye Miley, Taylor, Rihanna, and all the rest who spent Millions trying for the coveted Number 1 spot,” Patel wrote in a March 21, 2023, social media post. “Hello new Music Mogul @realDonaldTrump. We just took a flame thrower to the music industry.”

Trump went to play the recording ― which includes the Jan. 6 domestic terrorists singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” inter-spliced with Trump reading the Pledge of Allegiance ― at his rallies. He would stand at attention, sometimes even saluting, as images of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol played on video screens.

Patel, 44, began his career as a public defender but became a hero in the pro-Trump world as an aide to Devin Nunes, the former California congressman who in 2017 was the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Patel wrote a report seeking to discredit the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Russian assistance Trump received in helping him win the 2016 presidential election.

He subsequently moved to the Trump White House and worked as a staffer for the National Security Council, where he was known to seek face time with Trump whenever possible. Trump in the final months of his first term installed Patel as deputy to the director of national intelligence, and in the final weeks tried to place Patel as CIA Director Gina Haspel’s deputy as part of his machinations to overturn the 2020 election he had just lost. He backed down when Haspel reportedly threatened to resign in protest.

Patel finished Trump’s term as chief of staff at the Defense Department, where he famously was said to have supported investigating an absurd claim that votes in the 2020 election had been flipped from Trump to Democrat Joe Biden using Italian satellites.

Patel spent the four years between Trump’s terms participating in the pro-Trump movement’s grift machine, cashing in on appearances and merchandise to exploit the demand for all things Trump.

He produced a podcast for The Epoch Times, a news site known for promoting conspiracy theories. He traveled the country for revival-style meetings of believers in QAnon, a fringe movement that sees Trump as a messianic figure destined to rid the government of those who secretly murder children to drink their blood.

He marketed clothing and accessories with his “K$H” logo, peddling them at conservative gatherings. He published a series of children’s books featuring “King Donald” and casting himself as a wizard who foils plots against him by villains including “Hillary Queenton” and “Comma-la-la-la.”

He even helped market pills that claim — with zero evidence of efficacy — to undo the effects of COVID-19 vaccines. “Spike the Vax, order this homerun kit to rid your body of the harms of the vax,” Patel wrote in a social media post, linking to a “Warrior Essentials” website.

Patel over those four years also actively spread Trump’s lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, and Patel on Thursday refused, when asked, to say that Biden had won. Instead, he answered the way other Trump nominees have to avoid crossing Trump: “President Biden’s election was certified. He was sworn in and he served as a president of the United States.”

Despite the enemies list, despite the conspiracy theories and his various moneymaking schemes, Patel is likely to win confirmation anyway. Four Republican senators would have to oppose Patel for him to lose, and there was no pushback against Patel by GOP committee members Thursday.

Some tried to “what-about” the Jan. 6 violence — which was done in service of Trump’s coup attempt — with riots in 2020 after the police murder of a Black man in Minneapolis. Others tried to roll in questions about Biden’s son Hunter Biden and his laptop.

And committee Chair Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, set the tone from the start, stating that the FBI was a damaged agency and that its investigations into Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, as well as his subsequent refusal to turn over secret documents, were inappropriate.

“It’s clear how corrupt and unfair the Trump prosecution was,” he repeated in closing.

Schiff, meanwhile, pointed out that if confirmed, Patel would likely be the first FBI director ever to have invoked the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate oneself, which he did before the grand jury investigating Trump’s classified documents case.

“How did we get here? Where we are defending a nominee like this, who makes songs with convicts who attack law enforcement?” Schiff said. “History is littered with democracies that lost their freedoms and didn’t notice it while it was happening. Let’s not be one of them.”