In a lively segment on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Kasie Hunt, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) made a bold statement about President-Elect Donald Trump’s selection for FBI Director, Kash Patel, leaving Hunt taken aback with his bluntness regarding Patel’s future role at the FBI.
To provide context, Trump announced on November 30 that he had chosen Kash Patel as his pick for FBI Director. In his statement, the President-Elect praised Patel as a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter” with a history of exposing corruption, upholding justice, and defending the American people. Trump expressed confidence that Patel’s leadership would help combat rising crime in the U.S., dismantle migrant criminal gangs, and tackle human and drug trafficking. He also noted that Patel would collaborate with Attorney General Pam Bondi to restore the core values of the FBI: Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity.
In any case, Rep. Lawler, commenting on what Kash will do and what America wants, said, “Look, I don’t think the American people are interested in a revenge tour, but obviously if people did wrong in their official capacities, then that’s something they should be concerned about. But if they didn’t do anything wrong, if they upheld the law, then there shouldn’t be a problem.”
Continuing, Rep. Lawler said that the obvious objective of Kash is to root out all the forms of corruption and misuse of power at the FBI so that it gets back to targeting criminals rather than political enemies of the Deep State. He said, “The objective here obviously is to reform the Department of Justice and the FBI and get it back to its mission of going after criminals.”
But, though he noted that a revenge tour is unwanted, Lawler also noted that the FBI is now highly politicized, which is a major problem. He said, “Obviously in recent years we’ve seen the FBI and the Department of Justice weaponized in a way that has become completely political. That’s not good for the American people. It’s not good for our system of justice.”
Continuing on that point, he noted a major deficit in trust of the FBI, with Americans not believing it will do the right thing or that it works for them to go after the criminals who deserve to be targeted. He said, “The lack of confidence that Americans have in the Department of Justice and the FBI is terrible. So obviously we want a system that is reformed, that works for the American people, and that prosecutes criminals.”
Relating that to what he hopes Kash will do alongside Attorney General pick Pam Bondi, Rep. Lawler then noted that reforming the FBI so that it does do what it ought to fight crime is what should be done. He said, “And that should be the objective and the goal of every American. Obviously that’s what my hope is as the Department of Justice moves forward under Pam Bondi and the FBI under Kash Patel.”
As could be expected, that freaked out Hunt. She questioned whether Kash would actually implement “partisan neutrality” at the FBI and noted that Trump originally appointed Wray. Responding. Rep. Lawler told her, “Right, and Christopher Wray’s FBI then went and investigated Donald Trump. These charges have since been dropped by the special prosecutor.”
He added, noting that Americans have voted for Trump to shake up the FBI, “But again, Kasie, these issues have been litigated in this election that we just had. Donald Trump talked about this for two years, so I don’t know why anybody is surprised. The American people voted for Donald Trump overwhelmingly, despite him campaigning on these issues.”
And, sounding off on the cries of “partisanship,” he said, “I’m not concerned about partisanship here. I think we’ve seen a DOJ and an FBI that have been weaponized. You look at the New York State Attorney General Letitia James. She literally campaigned on prosecuting Donald Trump. I didn’t see many in the media objecting to that. The fact is that our system of justice needs to be politicized. Unfortunately, under the Biden administration, we have seen it weaponized, and it’s wrong.”
