Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton criticized President-elect Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel for FBI Director. Bolton compared the potential appointment to Stalin-era Soviet Russia, urging the Senate to reject Patel.
Trump announced Patel’s nomination on Sunday, describing him as a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter,” on his Truth Social account. Patel had served as senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.
Expressing concern over Kash Patel’s nomination as the head of the FBI, John Bolton said, “Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty [sic] Beria,” referencing the Soviet secret police chief under Stalin. “Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD [People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs]. The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0,” he added. Lavrentiy Beria was infamous for overseeing purges, repression, and terror in the former USSR.
Patel has previously expressed intentions to drastically change the FBI. In a September interview, he said he would “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen the next day as a museum of the deep state.” He also authored a book titled “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.”
This isn’t the first time Bolton has opposed a Trump nominee. He previously condemned the withdrawn nomination of Matt Gaetz for US attorney general, calling it “the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history.”