Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Trump administration U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton criticized President-elect Donald Trump‘s nomination of Kash Patel for the position of FBI Director.
Patel would replace Republican Christopher Wray, whose ten-year term as FBI Director would be cut short to make room for the new hire — Wray was put in the job by Trump during his first term.
Bolton wrote: “Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty Beria, the NKVD boss who once reportedly said to Stalin, ‘show me the man, and I will show you the crime.’”
Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty Beria, the NKVD boss who once reportedly said to Stalin, “show me the man, and I will show you the crime.” Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD. The Senate should reject this nomination unanimously.
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) December 2, 2024
Under Stalin, Beria was head of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) from 1938 to 1946. He oversaw several “political purges” including the “Great Purge.” Soviet politicians, military officers, professionals — people who opposed or criticized Stalin — were alleged to be “enemies of the people” and imprisoned or executed by the NKVD.
[NOTE: After Stalin’s death in 1953 and the emergence of Stalin critic Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Beria was arrested, tried for treason, terrorism, and counter-revolutionary activity, and executed.]
In his 2023 book Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for our Democracy, Patel named Bolton as one of many “Deep State” government officials to target, many of whom — like Bolton — worked in the first Trump administration. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who defended Trump but did not subscribe to the notion that the 2020 election was stolen, was also on the list.
Here’s Kash Patel’s full Deep State enemies list, which by my count includes 17 Trump administration political appointees from his first term
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— Eric Columbus (@ericcolumbus.bsky.social) December 2, 2024 at 2:35 PM
Also like Bolton, Barr apparently shared a dim view of Patel’s qualifications for a top post in U.S. law enforcement, objecting to the previous Trump administration’s efforts to install Patel at the FBI.
In his book, former Attorney General Bill Barr recounts Trump’s attempt to install Kash Patel as deputy director of the FBI: “I told Mark Meadows it would happen ‘over my dead body’…Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the… pic.twitter.com/b5i2RM8M2S
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 1, 2024
