The Senate’s confirmation of Kash Patel as FBI director would have secured the next of maybe Donald Trump’s two most significant votes, along with Tulsi Gabbard. These are the two people who have the almost singular ability to stop the world from becoming a full officers state like the kind that has already targeted them.
In no little piece, President Trump was elected as a rebuke to a national security equipment and intelligence services that have been used and politicized against those who despise the ruling-class. Our profound condition has increasingly operated like our democratic adversaries’ secret police, from Russiagate and the promotion of the Censorship-Industrial Complex to the first Trump prosecution and the Jan. 6 crusades to the targeting of all from devout Catholics to pro-life protesters and parents concerned about their children being indoctrinated in Marxism in schools.
As I just reported at RealClearInvestigations, the evidence shows that at least at the FBI, reporters exposing this wrongdoing have had their jobs and life destroyed. Retaliation is also being used against those who defend them.
The moving of America’s officers and informants on the American people is the death knell of the state, not to mention finally a gift to our enemies. After all, from their perspective, what could be better than seeing the U. S. destroy itself from within by eviscerating liberty and justice in targeting domestic wrongthinkers? We effectively politicize our intelligence while diverting time and money from pursuing our real foreign enemies.  ,
Simply put, police states cannot be free states.
Patel is aware of this well because he has a lot of experience working for the national security apparatus and has found himself in its crosshairs, like Gabbard. That makes him, like Gabbard, uniquely equipped to take it on.
Patel’s bona fides speak for themselves. He was a public defender, prosecutor, staff member at the Justice Department, and, during the first Trump administration, senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, principal deputy to the acting director of national intelligence, and chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense.
In his capacity as a top investigator on the House Intelligence Committee, Patel was the exposer par excellence of the Russia-collusion hoax at its height. In that capacity, he assisted in the writing of the” Nunes memo” that found the FISA court had spied on the Trump campaign through Carter Page. He would later continue his efforts by working to declassify and release Russiagate documents under the supervision of then-Acting Director of National Intelligence, Ric Grenell. Little could better capture Patel’s bravery and ability to confront a weaponized and hyper-politicized deep state.
In the weeks before issuing the memo, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein , reportedly , threatened to subpoena Patel’s communications, as well as those of his colleagues. Unbeknownst to the investigator, the Justice Department was already collecting those communications records under subpoena, per requests covering data from as early as Dec. 1, 2016. Inspector General Michael Horowitz ‘ revelations revealed that the same DOJ that Patel’s misconduct was spying on him on absurd grounds.
In responding to a question from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, regarding this episode during his confirmation hearing, Patel said:
Senator, this might be one of the circumstances that most favorably qualifies me to take over the FBI. I’ve suffered from the effects of government overreach and a slew of law enforcement and justice systems, so I understand what it feels like to have the government’s full weight stretching at you. And as the Biden inspector general] Horowitz ] determined, those activities by the FBI and DOJ were wholly improper and not predicated upon law and facts. I will ensure, if confirmed, that no American is subjected to that kind of torment, to that kind of cost, financially and personally.  ,
Gabbard likewise had stellar on-paper credentials, having spent more than two decades in uniform including deploying to Iraq and serving on the Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, and Armed Services Committees in Congress.
However, while dedicating her career to defending our nation against jihadists and other foreign foes and consuming and evaluating intelligence in the process, perhaps the best assessment of her mettle and merit for becoming director of national intelligence was her trenchant critique of the deep state she would oversee. She has highlighted how the government has trained its amazing powers on Americans in the name of safety and security, violating our civil liberties. And she has severely damaged her position within the framework of both national security and international relations.
The Democrat Party resurrected Gabbard by winning over the security blob and the foreign policy bloc. She, like Patel, paid a price for daring to cross it. Twenty-four hours after criticizing regime-chosen candidate Kamala Harris and her nomination, as Gabbard noted in her confirmation hearing testimony, she “was placed on a secret domestic terror watch list” in the TSA’s Quiet Skies program.
That targeting is a sign that the deep state fears she might have the guts and ability to change it. What truly unites my political opponents is that I refuse to be their puppet, she said in her testimony.
Patel and Gabbard have been targeted not due to lack of qualifications, demonstrated valor, or patriotism, but precisely because they have the qualifications, valor, and patriotism required to challenge the deep state and restore Americans ‘ control over it. They have vowed to root out its weaponization, corruption, and politicization and to restore the national security and intelligence apparatus to its actual, legitimate mission.
Their most important common trait is that they are not led by the entities they would lead, which is perhaps their most important trait. Instead, they have the scars that show how those entities have abandoned their goals and how determined to resurrect them.
The Senate demonstrated that it was aware of its time when it recently confirmed Gabbard. This week, it needs to confirm Kash Patel and further validate that assertion. Little could possibly be more crucial for this nation’s future.
Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten. substack .com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.
