FBI Director Kash Patel is very sad that people aren’t giving him enough credit for his role in indicting predecessor James Comey.
On Friday, Patel whined on X that “Career FBI agents, intel analysts, and staff led the investigation into Comey and others. They called the balls and strikes and will continue to do so.”
Former FBI Director James Comey
He’s also—very pathetically—posting his own media hits, where he brags that "everyone, especially those in positions of power, will be held to account—no matter their perch. No one is above the law.”
Buddy, President Donald Trump’s entire thesis of power is that he isn’t just above the law but basically a king, so this rings a little hollow.
And Patel’s passionate defense of the rule of law falls apart when you remember that he intervened to quash the investigation into Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, who got caught on camera taking a $50,000 bribe. But according to Patel, that was just a partisan investigation pursued by the Biden team, so he shut it down.
It’s somewhat unclear why anyone would want to take credit for the laughably thin indictment that Trump’s pet interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan put together. Normal indictments have details about the investigation and a lengthy narrative supporting each element of the criminal charge. Halligan just blurted out a couple of generic paragraphs and called it a day.
The weakness of the indictment is likely part strategy and part incompetence of Halligan, who was the only person to sign off on this, presenting the indictment all by herself to the grand jury.
U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan
This is, to put it mildly, exceedingly unusual, as career prosecutors who work on a case at length typically present evidence to a grand jury and sign off on an indictment. But in this instance, it makes sense that Halligan had to go it alone, since all of the career prosecutors in the office told her that there was no probable cause to charge Comey.
But Halligan was put in this position to deliver indictments of Trump’s enemies, and she really rose to the occasion. And that’s what Patel is complaining about; he feels that he and the FBI haven’t gotten enough acknowledgement for their work investigating Comey.
But it isn’t really clear what exactly Patel thinks the FBI did that deserves any credit. Halligan’s indictment certainly doesn’t reflect any investigative work, and Patel hasn’t really done anything except wail about how no one is paying attention to him.
This prosecution of Comey is selective and vindictive, purely demanded and directed by the president. That’s not an investigation; it’s an authoritarian strongman using the government to punish his enemies.
If Patel wants credit for that, he can have it.
