In two recent commentaries in the Carroll County Times, Armstrong Williams and Peter Jensen go head-to-head on FBI Director Kash Patel and whether he was a good pick to lead the agency. I agree with Mr. Williams’ defense of Patel based on a look at the director’s résumé.
Before becoming the FBI director, Kash Patel was a public defender in Florida, a federal terrorism prosecutor in the DOJ’s National Security Division embedded with U.S. special operations in the Middle East, and a congressional staffer in charge of the Russian interference investigation. Patel then became the president’s senior director for counterterrorism in the National Security Council, and in 2020 he became a deputy of National Intelligence Director Richard Grenell and later that year chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
In July 2016, the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane predicated on the Steele dossier and got a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Carter Page that effectively allowed them to spy on most, if not all, of Donald Trump’s campaign communications.
After President Trump’s election in 2016, Congressman Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), knew his committee would investigate possible Russian interference and offered Patel the position of congressional staffer leading the HPSCI Russian interference investigation. Patel agreed under one condition, that they share everything he found with the public.
Patel had experience with FISA applications and knew the standards for evidence and proof. Patel realized British spies didn’t just make up things; somebody had to pay Steele, who was employed by Fusion GPS. Patel’s approach was simple: get all the documents because they don’t lie, and follow the money.
Patel interviewed 60 witnesses under oath and asked them the same question: Have you personally seen evidence that Trump or anyone in his campaign conspired, colluded or coordinated with Russians? Everyone answered, no.
Patel discovered Christopher Steele (former British MI6 agent) was a paid FBI informant who leaked his dossier story and funneled disinformation through a DOJ associate deputy attorney general, Bruce Ohr, into the FBI. Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie was working for Fusion GPS (like Steele), so who was paying them? After months of bureaucratic stonewalling, roadblocks and threats he got a congressional subpoena to get the Fusion GPS bank records, and they showed the money came from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through their law firm Perkins Coie. The FBI never revealed the prejudicial way they hid exculpatory evidence for their FISA court warrants.
Patel’s report, based on facts, documentation and sworn testimony by DOJ and FBI employees, became known as the Nunes memo. It showed the Russian collusion narrative was a political hoax where the Democratic Party bought their way into the DOJ and FBI to use them against their political opponent. So, HPSCI’s Democratic ranking member (later chairman) Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and others lied and attacked Patel and Nunes and did everything they could to discredit them.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Patel was at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense watching the crowd at the Capitol. Days before, in a meeting with Patel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, President Trump authorized the Defense Department to deploy 20,000 National Guard troops. So where were they? On Jan. 4, the U.S. Capitol Police and the House sergeant at arms, who reports to Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate sergeant at arms, who reports to Chuck Schumer, said they requested no National Guard support. On Jan. 5, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, in a written and signed letter to the administration, made it clear she was requesting no additional federal law enforcement support.
The law is clear for military deployment. You need two specific conditions. First, the president has to authorize the use of the National Guard: He did. Second, state or local authorities, the D.C. mayor in this case, or federal law enforcement, Capitol Police in this case, must request National Guard assistance: They didn’t.
Finally, on the afternoon of Jan. 6, Mayor Bowser requested the National Guard, and the secretaries of defense and the Army, Patel and others in the Defense Department deployed them immediately, and the Capitol was secured and back to work in less than six hours.
The Trump administration followed the law and did everything possible to prepare for Jan. 6. The Democrats refused to make the legally necessary request to prevent the Jan. 6 riot and got exactly what they wanted.
Carl Burdette writes from Westminster.
