OPINION:
As President-elect Donald Trump assembles his team, Senate Democrats are scouring the backgrounds of his nominees in a frantic hunt for anything that might entice a Republican or two to help deny them confirmation.
Thus, Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, is getting the Brett Kavanaugh treatment as a falling-down drunk who has spent a lifetime abusing women, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is alleged to be a Russian asset and other nominees have conflicts of interest that disqualify them from serving.
These are over-the-top examples of the way the losing party goes after the winning party’s team these days, and they are a major reason so many talented professionals turn down offers to serve a president they support and admire.
In Washington, fairness often takes a back seat to partisanship; such attacks are part of the game. The hope is that smearing and denying confirmation to an appointee or two or forcing their withdrawal from consideration will tarnish the image of the incoming team and throw the new administration off-stride.
The effort targets the perceived weaknesses of individual appointees to make a political point. Those in the opposition seldom believe that whoever replaces the defeated nominee will be “better,” but taking out a piece or two in the chess game helps gain an advantage as they look to the next election. Everyone knows that the newly elected president will substitute a replacement nominee as committed to his agenda as the one his opponents are trying to sideline.
That is not the case, however, with the opposition to Mr. Trump’s choice of Kash Patel to head the FBI. Mr. Patel is different; he strikes fear into Senate Democrats. They know he’s the one man who might be able to investigate how the once-vaunted FBI has been weaponized, identify those responsible and maybe even restore it to its former glory.
When my favorite baseball player, Bo Jackson, was in his prime, Nike ran ads that read “Bo knows!” There was no one like him. Bo knew baseball. Mr. Patel “knows” what the FBI has been up to better than anyone else. He unearthed the facts behind the Russia hoax and took the denunciations in stride. He has served as a public defender, a prosecutor and an investigator. He has handled criminal cases, chased down terrorists and refused to buckle to intimidation.
Democrats, progressives and the cabal that has turned the FBI into a political lapdog went berserk at his nomination. The New York Times called him “concretely dangerous,” while other mainstream media characterized him as completely unqualified.
On paper, Mr. Patel is far more qualified than the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, or his predecessor, James Comey. Both had clerked for a judge after law school before joining major law firms and then transitioning to the Justice Department’s bureaucratic ranks.
Mr. Patel earned street cred as a defense lawyer and prosecutor. Later, as a congressional investigator, he exposed the agency’s active involvement in the attempt to take down Mr. Trump as a “Russian agent” and the FBI’s continuing willingness to play ball with the Biden White House while ignoring the rules in surveilling U.S. citizens. He won the trust of co-workers and the president. He served as senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council, principal deputy in the Office of National Intelligence and chief of staff at the Defense Department.
The attack media’s characterization of Mr. Patel contrasts sharply with what many who know him and have worked with him say.
Robert O’Brien, who headed Mr. Trump’s NSC, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Patel handled some of the nation’s most sensitive issues with care and discretion.” He went on to say, “I have no doubt that Mr. Patel will return our top-flight FBI agents to fighting crime and arresting gang members, terrorists, spies and traffickers whose activities have surged over our open borders in recent years.”
This is exactly what Democrats fear most. Mr. Patel will be in a position to accomplish this precisely because of his experience. He knows what needs to be done and is prepared to return the FBI to its mission. Wrongdoers beware.
When everyone counted Bo Jackson out after what should have been a career-ending injury, he came back and hit a towering home run in his first at-bat. The next morning, The Wall Street Journal ran a full-page ad that said simply, “Bo Knew.” When Mr. Patel wins confirmation and finishes his work at the FBI, we’ll know it was possible because Kash knew.
• David Keene is editor-at-large for The Washington Times.
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