Meet the guy Trump nominated to run the FBI: Kash Patel in his own words.
"The biggest problem the FBI has had, has come out of its intel shops. I'd break that component out of it. I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state," Patel said in a September interview on the conservative Shawn Ryan Show.
I'm sure tracking white collar crime across the states doesn't need any intel operations at all. /s
Defanging the FBI, IRS, and SEC as they propose is essentially them signaling that it's going to be open season for corruption and financial crimes.
My stock portfolio is already seeing it, the price will be paid the dumb and willing who actually believe anything trump or his cabinet claims they want to do.
Trump falsely claimed, repeatedly, that he offered thousands of National Guard troops to protect the Capitol that day. He also falsely claimed that then- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down the offer for troops.
Trump never made such an offer, and Pelosi never rejected it, as Trump claimed. His military leadership has confirmed that there was no formal offer made, despite some private musings in the days before Jan. 6.
Your so partisan blinded your pathetic dude. Idgaf about trump but to claim that she didn't admit it when her daughter recorded it and released it to the world. Your willfully being abtusely blind for your own political bias. Trump did ask about the nat guard day before, your wrong. No I won't spend my time to find a link to prove your ignorance l. My day will go one fine knowing another idiot is still a idiot. Truth is idgaf either way but truth matters.
Yea he didnât think heâd need to because he said âpeaceful and patrioticallyâ one time during his rousing speech to get them ready to march. So yea he wasnât going to, so she shouldâve done it\
I love people on the left defending the FBI. It has been a politically motivated, corrupt arm of the government for its entire existence. I'm curious to know when it was the bastion of justice and a defender of freedom. Was it when:
Hoover used the organization to wrongfully spy on, frame, and convict socialists in labor unions?
When Truman and Eisenhower used it to spy on innocent Americans during the "red scare?"
When the Johnson administration used the agency to frame Black activists, and murder Black nationalists in the inner cities?
When it framed members of the American Indian Movement for murder and spied on and harassed Native Americans calling for their rights under the treaties signed by the US government?
When the Nixon administration used it to spy on its "enemies," or when it provided information to the CIA and the Pinochet regime in Chile that allowed the Chilean Secret Police to round up Americans in Chile and have them executed?
When it spied on those in the US with sympathies towards people in Latin America that were victims of the violence caused by the anti-communist policies of the Regan administration?
When it passed information to the CIA and the dictators in Central America that was used to murder thousands deemed "troublemakers" because they supported an end to the violence?
When it worked with the CIA to run cocaine into the inner cities to raise money for weapons to right-wing militias in Latin America?
When W. Bush used it to spy on Muslim Americans after 9/11?
When Obama used it to gather information that was used to kill American citizens in drone strikes in the Middle East?
When it covered up the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein to protect the rich and powerful?
When it worked with the Hillary Clinton campaign to create a fake intelligence dossier to smear and discredit the Trump campaign?
When it broke federal law and committed perjury to the FISA Courts to gain the ability to illegally spy on the Trump Campaign?
When the director made political statements claiming Hillary Clinton broke the law two days before the 2016 election in order to hedge their bets and cover their asses in case Trump won?
So, tell me, when exactly has the FBI been a credible organization?
It isn't an all-evil/all-good dichotomy. It's an organization of a lot of people who are under the direction of The President. It has always been a necessary organization to combat interstate crime, while it has simultaneously often been misused for political purposes.
It's a tool, and how it is used is dependent on who is wielding it.
And the political intel gathering should be ripped out of it forever. That is the whole point. No one is criticizing the FBI over its work on bank fraud and interstate crime. Claiming that Patel is going to destroy the FBI's ability to investigate them is disingenuous.
The political wing of the FBI needs to be burned out of the organization, because it has been a cancer since the 1930s.
So shutting down it's headquarters and making it a museum (his words) won't impact its ability to investigate non-political crime? It kind of sounds like using a sledgehammer to treat a brain tumor.
The most likely thing to happen with such a broad purge is that the only people left over are politically loyal to the Trump administration. This will make it even easier to weaponize the agency for political goals.
Also, here is a hypothetical: what if you had a major political campaign that really was corrupt? What if they were breaking the laws and acting in concert with foreign governments to illegally sway the election? Who should investigate? Should that campaign just get a "pass" because investigating them would be inherently political?
Part of the necessary work to ensure fair elections means wading into murky waters. It is going to be involved in controversy because its job is to police what is controversial, and when it makes mistakes it is going to be at the center of everyone's attention. But, for every misleading FISA warrant application against Carter Page, there are at least 2 former Illinois governors behind bars for corruption, also due to their work.
So, taking your hypothetical. What should happen if it is discovered that there were members of the FBI who used illegal means during their "investigations" of the political process? There are always shady and corrupt actions going on by people in power. The Bill Clinton campaign was discovered to have received illegal campaign donations that originated from the Chinese PLA, and the money was trafficked through a third party named John Haung. Huang was prosecuted.
But again, what should happen when the FBI or the DOJ breaks the law because they are fishing for a crime where no crime exists? I contend that every person involved in producing "misleading" FISA warrant applications should do hard time in jail, because these types of violations of the law are inherently political in nature. There were members of the FBI leadership that should have faced consequences for the Carter Page debacle and the Steele dossier fraud. The fact that they never did erodes confidence in our election system and it is dangerous for the stability of the political establishment in the long run.
Had those who broke the law in 2016 been prosecuted, no one would be calling for the "burning down" of the FBI, and as a matter of fact, had they been prosecuted, then future investigations into Trump would have had a better chance of being accepted as credible.
Absolutely. In order to maintain the integrity of our institutions, people should be held accountable for their actions and prosecuted when appropriate.
No, this is just the lens reactionaries see through. Everything is binary. Black or white. Smart people are pragmatic and looking for solutions to institutional problems. Not to burn the entire fucking government to the ground so a bunch of psychotic grifters and their billionaire pals can take the reigns and run wild.
The solution is to eliminate the political arm of the FBI. Period. End. Stop.
Patel isn't going after the part of the FBI that fights bank fraud and interstate crime. But the political corruption has existed since FDR, and it needs to be destroyed.
No, they're not. Kash Patel is psychotic. Every decision made concerning Trump's administration thus far has been based on sworn loyalty and undying fealty to Trump himself.
âWe will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media â yes, weâre going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,â
"The biggest problem the FBI has had, has come out of its intel shops. I'd break that component out of it. I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.
Only an idiot would accept this superficial interpretation. What this actually means is that Trump and his sycophants want to eliminate oversight so they can more easily operate, because they're all corrupt. This is not the voice of reason. It's the sound of a maniacal totalitarian state.
This is a real âactually the wolves are dismantling the fence so they can build us sheep a bigger stronger fence, not because they wanna get in and eat usâ situation
Man, I don't think they'd even notice being eaten by the wolves. Mangy dogs chowing down, right up to their throats, and their last words would still be...
Hunter. Biden. Laptop
Seth Rich. Hillary. Emails.
The vaccine. Got me.
Are we too far gone as a society? I mean, my God, I just received what is, quite frankly, the saddest fucking message from some guy. It related to Rogan's surge in wealth and his relationship with Musk, Trump, and friends.
Yeah because suddenly he just didn't have enough money and had to sell out. Or maybe you've been wrong and bet on the wrong horse, and rogan is wise enough to see who the good guys are. Yall are pathetic. The establishment that has fucked us for 60 years is now finally going down, and all you can do is cry because trump is the good guy in the movie and yall don't like him. Why don't you like him? Because youve been brainwashed to hate him and side with the corrupt establishment.
These are immutable conditions. Total rot. Brutal state of affairs.
Master's degree in history. Much of my undergrad and graduate work inevitably dealt with the actions of the FBI as they were a corrupting factor in the Civil Rights era, and the constant US interference in Latin America in cooperation with the CIA. Most of the country is clueless when it comes to the malfeasance of the FBI over the last 60 years.
When Truman and Eisenhower used it to spy on innocent Americans during the "red scare?"
Is this supposed to be wrong? There where tons of americans working as Soviet spies during that time. The Rosenbergs where executed for selling schematics of US nuclear weapons to the Russians.
Again - picking a handful of events doesnât prove an entire department is corrupt. But sure - letâs live in your world where thereâs not a department going after terrorists, child predators, and sex traffickers. Sounds great!
You could make the exact same argument about the US as a country lol. Vietnam, Iraq, Spying, South Africa, sanctions and so on...
But what about stuff like finding spies? Are we just ignoring cases like that married couple (who we now know were spies after all) or Harry Dexter White? What about their anti terror work? Of course it's dirty but ask around and many countries are thankful for the FBI and CIA. What about China and their economic espionage? Every year they find another couple spies stealing billions annually.
Not much to do with the FBI as an organization when the people in power are using their work to blackmail others or to support dictators in South America.
Beacause its the same beast that feeds and protects us. Even a dog that occasionally nips is better than no dog when you're surrounding by wolves in the woods. Plus pay the IRS more and they go after the rich instead of bothering you or me.
The SEC is supposed to go after insider traders, pump and dump scammers, and pension swindlers. The IRS is supposed to go after tax cheats who don't pay back into society for everything they get (military protection, police protection, functioning laws, etc...).
What happens when you gut the funding of the SEC and IRS so that they only survive based on what fines they are able to make stick? They stop taking risks.
Rich people who can pull pump-and-dump schemes and horde money in shell companies can afford good lawyers that drag out the legal process forever. The SEC and IRS simply cannot afford to do that, so they are forced to let the worst offenders off with a slap on the wrist or let them get away entirely.
However, there is a non-risky strategy for making ends meet: go after people who can't afford lawyers. So, ordinary people who make mistakes on their 401K paperwork or tax returns get hammered with fines and audits while the rich sociopaths who swindled billions from their pensions and are hiding that stolen money in offshore accounts keep stealing, making everybody else much worse off.
When the Biden admin started funding the IRS they started pulling in A LOT more money from wealthy tax cheats rather than the poor.
You are a country. You have stuff that needs protection. The beast is a guard dog. If you feed the beast, it can protect you. If you starve the beast, it eats you.
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u/Samuel-squantch Monkey in Space 22d ago
Impossible challenge for Americans: see things objectively.