The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Get Me Kash Patel

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

On this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Hanson delves into the controversies surrounding Kash Patel's nomination as the FBI director. Despite Patel's extensive background as a public defender, federal prosecutor, and involvement in the executive and legislative branches, his role in the Nunes memo and association with Donald Trump have stirred significant opposition from the Left: “So, in all of these aspects, he seems like the perfect FBI director. But there's two reasons why people are very angry about him, of course. One is, he was the point man for Devin Nunes House Select Intelligence Committee investigation of the FBI. And he helped draft the Nunes memo, which detailed, quite accurately, all of the FBI's machinations to collude with their paid informant, Christopher Steele, to fabricate a false dossier that incorrectly alleged that Donald Trump was a Russian asset.” For Victor's latest thoughts, please go to: https://victorhanson.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. But why are people so angry or upset on the left about Cash Patel? Because ostensibly, he's been a public defender. He's been a federal prosecutor. He's worked in the executive branch in DOD. He's worked in the legislative branch attached to the House Intelligence Committee. He seems like the perfect FBI director.

They just care that Cash Patel helped Donald Trump prove that the FBI and the Hillary Clinton campaign were extremely. extraordinarily trying to destroy a political opponent. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. I want to talk today about the current nomination process, specifically Cash Patel, Donald Trump's designate to be director of FBI. It's causing perhaps as much controversy as the Pete HECSeth nomination for Secretary of Defense that went through by the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Vance and surely the Robert F. Kennedy,

Health and Human Services nomination will incur similar controversy. But why are people so angry or upset on the left about Cash Patel? Because ostensibly, he's been a public defender. He's been a federal prosecutor. He's worked in the executive branch in DOD. He's worked in the legislative Brants attached to the Senate, excuse me, the House Intelligence Committee. So in all of these aspects, he seems like the perfect FBI director. But there's two reasons why people are very angry about him, of course. One is he was the point man for Devin Nunes' House Select Intelligence Committee investigation of the FBI.

And he helped draft the Nunes memo, which did. detailed, quite accurately, all of the FBI's machinations to collude with their paid informant Christopher Steele to fabricate a false dossier that incorrectly alleged that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. It was an effort of Hillary Clinton through three paywalls to damage the Trump campaign, and it had the assistance of the FBI. And more importantly, the FBI went out to monitor the communications of Cash Patel himself. And so in the left-wing way of thinking, Cash Patel helped to exonerate Donald Trump. And they're not worried about the Nunes memo turned out to be valid in a way that the

opposing minority memo of Adam Schiff did not. They don't care about the veracity. They just care that Cash Patel helped Donald Trump prove that. the FBI and the Hillary Clinton campaign were extraordinarily trying to destroy a political opponent. The second thing is Cash Patel comes from a different background. He's an Indian American immigrant. He went to schools that the left do not, they don't think they're quite Ivy League, no Yale Law School degree, no Harvard Law School. Not that that matters all the time. Look at J.D. Vance with his Yale degree. They went out to destroy him. But they're snob.

the Bicostal elite. He's an outsider. And then a third thing is that consistent with all these nominees, Cash Patel had been a victim of the very office that he will direct in the way that they went after Tulsi Gabbard and put her on a no fly list and the way they went after HHS designate Robert Kennedy, the way they went after J. Bacaria, et cetera. And that makes them very afraid. So it's illogical, but there's also another reason that they're opposing them. The FBI has become renegate. Just think about the last 10 years. We had Robert Mueller, the former FBI director, who was the head of the Mueller investigation.

Under oath, he did not know what Fusion GPS was. He claimed, nor the Steele dossier, the two catalysts that prompted his appointment. Then we go to James Comey. He hired Christopher Steele. He paid him as an FBI informant. He had a private conversation where the President of the United States went back out, recorded it on an FBI device, and then leaked it. And then he lied to the president and said, you're not under investigation, Mr. President. Then he went before the House Intelligence Committee under 245 times.

He said, I didn't remember. Then his replacement, Andrew McCabe, lied four times to federal investigators. And this is in addition to the Peter Stroke, Lisa Page Corpus, where they said Andrew McCabe has guaranteed that Trump will not be elected in 2016. Then we come to Christopher Ray. Christopher Ray unleashed the FBI to look at parents, to surveil them at school board meetings, to have asymmetrical treatment toward anti-abortion protesters. There were 23 to 28 FBI informants on January 6th. And look at this, and every one of these cases, Donald Trump put up with Robert Mueller. He put up with him.

In other words, Robert Mueller ate up 20 months and $40 million of the Trump administration. And Trump didn't go after him. He was a retired FBI Special Counsel. He did not fire James Comey until it came to his attention to all the things I enumerated. He allowed Andrew McCabe to be the interim FBI director, who then, Then, in cahoots with Rod Rosenstein, supposedly discussed putting a wire to stealthily wiretap the President of the United States. And he still wasn't fired. He wasn't fired until he lied four times of federal investigators.

And finally, to finish, Christopher Ray was never fired. Trump was very magnanimous to him, given all the things that he did. Remember, the FBI partnered with Facebook to suppress news on the eve of the 2020. election that the laptop supposedly was Russian disinformation when the FBI had it in their possession for a year and knew it wasn't. Add all of this up and it makes sense if you why the left. It makes sense why the left is trying to destroy cash Patel, but it doesn't make it right. And I'm confident as you are that he will be confirmed because he will be an FBI director like none other we've had in the last 20 years. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen.

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