Kash Patel for FBI

Trump has nominated Kash Patel for FBI director. Wait a sec, isn't Christopher Wray still FBI director? He hasn't resigned or been fired yet, but it's now clear Wray should have his desk packed up by the close of business on January 19. Wray treated Trump, the man who appointed him, with utter contempt; now Trump is paying him back in spades, and I'm loving it. Wray has earned every bit of this treatment.

In positive signs for Patel's tenure, Morning Joe called him the "personification of MAGA rage." Even more important, the disgraced Andrew McCabe called him "profoundly unqualified," and Tom Nichols, a staff writer for the Atlantic magazine, slammed him as "as dangerous as it gets."

What are Patel's real qualifications or lack thereof? First, he understands the problem. He has called for the FBI headquarters to be closed and its 7000 staff located there to be sent out to be real cops. He has said that the FBI is too frickin' big. (Above quotes are from a FoxNews article.)

Second, he is loyal to Trump — obviously an important qualification for someone who will reform the FBI after a century or more of abuses. And especially important after the stunning attacks on Trump by both of his FBI directors.

But what of his actual skills? Interestingly the first nine years of his career were spent as a public defender. I like to see someone who has played on both sides of the ball because that gives a fuller appreciation of the law.

He has national security and intelligence experience, having served three years as a trial attorney in the DoJ's national security division and two years as senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee. There he played a key role in investigating the Russia collusion hoax and working for Devin Nunes while investigating the FISA abuses.

He served as senior director for counterintelligence at the National Security Counsel and was principal deputy to Ric Grenell at the Office of National Intelligence. In the interregnum, he was an advisor to Trump on national security matters and strongly defended him in the classified documents case. He has a lot of the right experience in the intelligence, law enforcement, and national security fields.

His biggest weakness is that he hasn't had much experience administering a large bureaucracy — or any large organization. And he will face enormous, entrenched opposition. But he has worked in the DoJ and counterintelligence, so he at least understands how those organizations function. If he picks good deputies, this weakness will be manageable. There will be some difficulty in confirming such an obvious fighter who is committed to gutting the FBI; but as long as no more than four Republicans defect, Trump will be able to push him through.

I'm hopeful that he will be confirmed and cautiously optimistic that he will make important changes at the FBI. But given the magnitude of the task, it's too much to hope that he can totally root out the corruption and treason at the FBI.