Sen. Lindsey Graham says public trust in the FBI is gone

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that the qualities needed in an FBI director today are different from those he noted in 2017, the last time President-elect Donald Trump selected a leader for the bureau.

Mr. Graham’s 2017 remarks were replayed Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” and he said the president has a “duty and obligation to pick somebody beyond reproach, outside the political lane” and “somebody we can all rally around” for FBI director.

When asked whether Kash Patel, Mr. Trump’s pick for FBI director, is beyond reproach and someone people could rally around, Mr. Graham said times have changed.

“Well, I think you’re talking about what he should do the last time,” the South Carolina Republican said. “Look what’s happened since the last time. The FBI in the eyes of conservatives has become sort of a very biased organization.”

He criticized how the FBI handled certain issues such as the Christopher Steele dossier and Hunter Biden’s laptop, and said “none of us trust these people anymore.”

“So the FBI we talked about then has changed. So what do I want in an FBI director now? Somebody that can clean it up, get back to the job of fighting crime,” Mr. Graham said. “Don’t have your thumb on the political scale. Make sure it’s not used as a political weapon against people that you have a beef with.

“We don’t want to go back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover,” he said. “What we want to do is have an FBI that’s going to call balls and strikes, and it’s going to take somebody to clean out the place.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Patel would replace Director Christopher A. Wray, who has announced that he will resign next month when President Biden’s term ends.

Mr. Wray, whom Mr. Trump nominated to the post, was confirmed to the 10-year post in 2017.

Mr. Patel met with Republican senators last week on Capitol Hill to discuss his plans for the FBI. Some GOP senators have already signaled their support for him,

However, some Democrats are still signaling their worries surrounding Mr. Patel.

Sen.-elect Adam B. Schiff, slammed Mr. Patel on ABC’s “This Week” as an unqualified toady.

“Well, let me just say, with respect to some of the nominees like Kash Patel, this is someone in my view who’s not qualified to be FBI director and someone who claimed, for example, that he wanted to shut down FBI headquarters early in his tenure and open a museum to the deep state. So this is a conspiracy theorist,” said Mr. Schiff, California Democrat.

“It’s also someone I think who demonstrated, sadly, a principle of the first Trump administration and that is you rise to the level of your sycophancy,” he said. “The bigger the sycophant, the higher you rise. He’s risen pretty high but that’s not what we’re looking for.”

Mr. Schiff’s criticism of Mr. Patel as a conspiracy theorist is unlikely to persuade many Republicans, given his own role in spreading misinformation about Mr. Trump’s purported ties to Russia and about investigations thereof. 

Those unfounded charges, which Mr. Schiff falsely said were backed up based on his role on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, led to his censure by the House — a censure Mr. Schiff himself touted as a badge of honor.

Mr. Patel served in the first Trump administration in multiple roles, like chief of staff at the Defense Department, deputy Director of National Intelligence and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing his nomination. 

“This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border,” he wrote. “Kash will work under our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI.”