Donald Trump is now a convicted felon. Donald Trump is also still the favorite to be the next president of the United States. Since as far back as at least 2017, Democrats have dreamed about the moment when a jury would find Trump guilty of crimes. And on Thursday, a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the first degree. But now that that moment has arrived, the vibes are all wrong. **What happened?** Former President Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts in a New York legal case, the first of his four criminal trials to reach a verdict. **What was the case about?** Broadly, the $130,000 [hush money payment](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/31/23579526/trump-arrested-indictment-stormy-daniels-felony) that Trump’s lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election so Daniels wouldn’t go public saying she’d had a sexual encounter with Trump. Specifically, the question was whether, ​​when Trump later repaid Cohen for that money, the Trump Organization falsely logged those payments as “legal expenses” in company records. **What’s next?** Sentencing. Juan Merchan, the New York justice overseeing the case, plans to sentence Trump on July 11. Trump was convicted of 34 counts of a nonviolent, Class E felony, and he has no prior convictions, which means he could receive anywhere from no prison time to up to four years incarceration. Trump’s conviction on charges of falsifying business records comes as he has held on to a stubborn lead in [both](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/?ex_cid=abcpromo) [national](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-biden) and [swing state](https://www.270towin.com/2024-presidential-election-polls/) polls for months, and as Democrats have grown [increasingly anxious](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/28/democrats-freakout-over-biden-00160047) about Biden’s reelection chances. Some might hope the conviction and ensuing sentence will be a turning point for the 2024 campaign — that it will be the moment when the public is jolted into realizing that, actually, they don’t want a felon as president. There’s been at least some basis for that hope in [polls showing](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/us/politics/trump-biden-times-siena-poll.html) a significant share of voters saying they would switch from Trump to Biden after a conviction. But amid a long track record of Trump surviving past scandals, a robust right-wing media ecosystem peddling alternative narratives that Democrats are the corrupt ones, and widespread dissatisfaction with Joe Biden’s presidency, it’s far from clear a conviction would really make such a difference in practice. What seems to have happened here is that, over the past decade, the idea of having a major political figure in prosecutorial jeopardy has been normalized. First, we got used to Trump being under investigation and then under (quadruple) indictment. Now, Team Trump has successfully warped the rules of politics to the point where even a felony conviction may not matter. It’s like the metaphor of the frog that doesn’t notice the water around it is gradually boiling: We, the American electorate, are the frog. Back in the before times, criminal investigations of leading politicians were a big, earth-shaking deal. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was dogged by the FBI’s investigation into whether her use of a private email server had jeopardized classified information. In July, FBI director James Comey publicly opined that she had been “extremely careless,” but concluded that “no reasonable prosecutor” would actually charge her. Then, in late October, Comey suddenly announced in a letter that he was reopening the investigation because new information had been discovered — the new information didn’t prove to be significant, but there’s good reason to believe Comey’s letter and the heavy media coverage of it swung the election to Trump. (In the week after he released the letter, [Trump gained](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/) 3 points in the polls.) Once Trump was elected, investigative attention switched to him, focused at first on whether his associates had worked with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. Trump’s own behavior, such as his sudden firing of Comey, heightened these suspicions, and spurred the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation drew enormous public attention and seemed to have a great deal of gravity to it. This, it was believed, was the investigation that could unmake a president, it could bring Trump down like the Watergate scandal did to Nixon. But as the probe stretched on, an important change occurred: Trump and his supporters got better at hitting back. He mobilized his allies in Congress and in right-wing media to aggressively attack the investigators, portraying all scrutiny of his conduct as illegitimate. So by the time Mueller got around to finishing his report in 2019, the conclusion didn’t even really matter anymore: Republicans in Congress would almost surely not have removed Trump from office no matter what the special counsel found. This basic dynamic persisted during Trump’s first impeachment scandal — you know, the one over him trying to strong-arm Ukraine’s president into investigating the Bidens — and even after his attempt to steal the 2020 election and the ensuing January 6 attack on the Capitol. Every time, the right [would unite behind Trump](https://www.vox.com/politics/24035809/trump-iowa-frontrunner-january-6-insurrection-gop-primary-polls-results), shield him from consequences, and ensure he’d still be present in our politics after the storm passed. Meanwhile, the right has also become quite adept at constructing alternative narratives in which it’s really Democrats and the people investigating Trump who are the real criminals. Fox News focuses intensely on Hunter Biden’s legal travails to send the message that Democrats are the corrupt party. Less ideological voters hear both narratives and may conclude it’s really both parties who are crooked, which dilutes the impact of Trump’s criminal scandals among the general public. But, some Democratic optimists say, this time is fundamentally different — a criminal conviction that will officially make Trump a felon and could even perhaps send him to prison. Perhaps this will be the tipping point for some voters to abandon him? They point to [some polls](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4441241-trump-poll-convictions-deep-trouble/) in which a significant number of voters have said they won’t vote for Trump if he’s been convicted of a felony. Consider me skeptical. For one, people have been predicting that this or that scandal will finally be the thing that takes Trump down — driving away enough of his support so that his political career is over — since he [first entered politics in 2015](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/upshot/the-trump-campaigns-turning-point.html). Such predictions continued [during his presidency](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/michael-cohen-and-the-end-stage-of-the-trump-presidency), [after his loss to Joe Biden](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/10/trump-comeback-2024-not-happening-444135), [and after](https://www.axios.com/2022/10/15/donald-trump-2024-presidential-election-paul-ryan) his attempt to steal a second term for himself ended in violence at the US Capitol. But Trump’s dominance over the GOP base and the Republican Party in general has been unshakable. I’m also doubtful that swing voters will be particularly affected by this. Trump has long been scandal-plagued, and voters have heard of his legal jeopardy for many years. It is not as if voters are suddenly learning [for the first time](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-air-force-one-departure-091920/#:~:text=you%E2%80%99re%20telling%20me%20now%20for%20the%20first%20time.) that he is unethical. The trial itself focused on a matter — hush money Michael Cohen paid to keep Stormy Daniels from going public to allege a sexual encounter with Trump — that was first reported back in 2018. The specific charges are technical, focused on whether internal Trump Organization documents about repaying Cohen were falsely categorized as being for “legal services.” But Trump tried to steal the 2020 election in plain sight. If voters are still considering voting for him even despite that, it seems unlikely that this conviction on the far less consequential business records matter would be the thing that stops them. As for [those](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/06/trump-trial-poll-ipsos-00104772#:~:text=Among%20the%20broader,can%20cost%20him.) [polls](https://www.reuters.com/legal/about-half-us-republicans-could-spurn-trump-if-he-is-convicted-reutersipsos-poll-2023-08-03/) in which many voters said they’d ditch Trump if he’s convicted: Voters there are responding to hypothetical questions in a vacuum. But in the real world, these voters will also be exposed to pro-Trump messaging: his complaints that he was unfairly treated, that the prosecution was brought by a partisan Democrat in an extremely Democratic area, that the underlying offense is no big deal, etc. Finally, there’s another issue: It’s a two-candidate race, and many on-the-fence voters are frustrated with Joe Biden’s presidency. It’s easy to say, in theory, that no one who’s a convicted felon should be allowed to be president. In practice, there will only be two options on the ballot, so the lesser-of-two-evils reasoning will be strong. That means that if voters decide they really want President Biden out, they may conclude that the only realistic alternative is President Convicted Felon. You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we believe in helping everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help to shape it. Our mission is to create clear, accessible journalism to empower understanding and action. If you share our vision, please consider supporting our work by becoming a _Vox Member_. Your support ensures Vox a stable, independent source of funding to underpin our journalism. If you are not ready to become a Member, even small contributions are meaningful in supporting a sustainable model for journalism. Thank you for being part of our community.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief [Join for $5/month](https://vox.memberful.com/checkout?plan=99543&itm_campaign=swati-launch-banner&itm_medium=site&itm_source=footer) We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via [](https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=VSP4PYJX98SHL)

Like a warm compress drawing pus from a wound, the Democratic presidential candidacy of [Kamala Harris](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kamala-harris) immediately brought out the misogyny and racism of the Maga Republican party. Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican representative, [called](https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/22/politics/video/kamala-harris-burchett-dei-hire-charlamagne-tha-god-angela-rye-lead-digvid) Harris, the child of a Black Jamaican father and an Indian mother, a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire – picked, that is, because she is Black, not because she’s qualified. Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, insinuated that Harris is a welfare queen. “What the hell have you done other than collect a check?” he asked at a [Michigan](https://www.facebook.com/RepublicWorld/videos/458189460392711/) rally of Harris, a former state attorney general, US senator and now the vice-president. At the same time, [social media posts](https://perma.cc/C9AD-WD57) showing Harris with her parents falsely claim she’s not really Black, because her father is light-skinned. Popping up again are rumors [circulated](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-birther-theory-vice-president-eligibility-trump-campaign/) in 2020 by Trump lawyer John Eastman that Harris is ineligible to run for office because she might not be a citizen. Like Barack Obama, about whom Trump stirred the same “birther” calumny, Harris was born in the US. Far-right blogger [Matt Walsh](https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1815096880272986511) and former Fox host [Megyn Kelly](https://x.com/megynkelly/status/1815383469536550960) suggested Harris slept her way to the top. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went further, alleging that the veep was “once an escort” who started out by “giving blow jobs to successful, rich, Black men”. The founder of Pastors for Trump [tweeted](https://x.com/JacksonLahmeyer): “Both Joe + the Ho gotta go!” While allegedly copulating with all comers, Harris is slammed for failing in her womanly duty to reproduce. In a video that recently turned up, Vance, the father of three, told [Tucker Carlson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gPGxB2FqEc) in 2021 that the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” – Harris among them – who don’t “have a direct stake” in the country’s future. Will Chamberlain, a lawyer who worked on Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, [proclaimed](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/opinion/kamala-harris-jd-vance.html) that “people without kids … are highly susceptible to corruption and perversion. They have no care for the future and live in the present.” Being a step-parent – as Harris is to her husband’s biological children – doesn’t count, Chamberlain [added](https://x.com/willchamberlain/status/1815150379610382598). This criticism has never been leveled against the childless George Washington – although, to be fair, he was the Father of Our Country. And if misogyny and racism are not sufficient, the right keeps searching for plain weirdness to use against the Democratic candidate. All they’ve come up with, though, is one of her more charming characteristics, her [laugh](https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1815112666924699853), from which Trump derives his lamest-yet political nickname: “Laughing Kamala”. This stuff is vile to watch. But as with drained pus, it’s got to be exposed to the air. Because it’s not just talk. It reveals what a Trump presidency would mean. By exposing what’s festering barely under the skin of Trumpism, the Republican party is telling us to vote against him. While in office, Trump’s ignorance and incompetence prevented him from accomplishing – or, often, knowing – what he wanted to do. In his madder moments, some of his advisers pulled him back from the edge. But this time, he’s got a team of smart, loyal experts and a detailed plan, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, to get it done. In 2020, when Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd’s murder spread across the country, Trump gunned to gun down the protesters – literally. “Can’t you just shoot them?” he asked Mark Esper, [according](https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-sacred-oath-mark-t-esper?variant=39847191674914) to the then defense secretary’s memoir. In another [memoir](https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/24/politics/bender-book-trump-milley-protests/index.html), then Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender quotes the apoplectic president calling on police and the military to “crack \[protesters’\] skulls” and “beat the fuck” out of them. For the most part, this didn’t happen. Should Project 2025 become reality, however, the commander-in-chief would be freer to [invoke](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/inside-project-2025s-plan-to-reprogram-the-government/) the Insurrection Act of 1807, which authorizes him to direct the military to put down domestic unrest. The blueprint also advises the administration to [revoke all consent decrees](https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-17.pdf) imposing federal oversight on police departments with records of brutality and murder of civilians, particularly civilians of color. The [2024 Republican national convention](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republican-national-convention-2024), featuring Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and another straight white man on the ticket, was practically a parody of the white hypermasculinity animating the party. But the Republican party promises to force its gender ideology on the rest of us. “Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children,” reads the [platform](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform). Project 2025 proposes that “the redefinition of sex to cover gender identity and sexual orientation … be reversed” and the phrase “sexual orientation and gender identity” be eliminated from anti-discrimination policies across federal agencies. In fact, its aim is to eliminate anti-discrimination policies altogether. And, of course, there’s abortion. In 2016, Trump [opined](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/30/donald-trump-there-has-to-be-some-form-of-punishment-for-women-who-get-abortions/) that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions. Then he walked the statement back. This April, he [told](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/10/trumps-telling-comment-punishing-doctors-who-provide-abortions/) a reporter that states should be allowed to punish doctors. “Everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights,” he elaborated, using the historical code words for legislated racial segregation – now updated to gender oppression. And while he’s distanced himself from a federal abortion ban, Project 2025 is riddled with pledges to protect the safety, dignity and humanity of the unborn. Clueless as he was, Trump attained the right’s holy grail: a supreme court majority that will decimate the civil and human rights of people of color, pregnant people, the poor, immigrants and the marginalized long into the future. The Trump court is already punishing people who seek abortions. Even if Congress founders, this court will realize every racist and misogynist dream. It’s hard to say whether this bigotry will sway voters. A month before the 2016 election, after a campaign of one racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic outburst after another, Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” tape was leaked and a dozen women [accused](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/10/13/roundup-accusations-bad-behavior-hit-trump-wednesday/91984974/) the candidate of sexual misconduct. Hillary Clinton [surged](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/10/hillary-clintons-poll-leads-increase-after-access-hollywood-tape-leak.html) to a lead of as much as 11 points. Then, FBI director James Comey released a letter equivocating on the extent or importance of [those official emails](https://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/a-guide-to-clintons-emails/) on her private server, and Trump won. It’s still unclear whether the Comey report turned the election. But the pussy-grabbing tape did not. Still, in 2016, Trump was a pig but an untested pig. A lot has happened since then. His presidency was bookended by the Women’s March and the Black Lives Matter protests. In 2017, Tarana Burke’s #MeToo hashtag went viral and rage over sexual harassment exploded. Five years later, [Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/09/29/more-than-twice-as-many-americans-support-than-oppose-the-metoo-movement/) found that the majority of Americans, including Republicans, felt the #MeToo movement had a positive impact. BLM engaged protesters of every age and race, and antiracist movements continue to. Trump has been convicted of sexual abuse. Now, if anything, Maga is focusing the anger of women and people of color. Republican leaders sense these changes, and they’re worried – worried enough that Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, called a [closed-door meeting](https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2024/07/24/republicans-steer-clear-racist-sexist-attacks-kamala-harris/) to tell the caucus to cut the slime and focus on the issues. Maybe they will. But Trump and his nastier champions will not: hatred will continue to ooze from their mouths. Disgusting as it, pay attention. Because sexism and racism are not just talk. They’re policies – the calamitous policies a Trump presidency augurs. * Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books

“It’ll begin to end when the act gets tired and the audience starts walking out,” Warren Beatty, a perspicacious observer, told me eight years ago, in the early summer of 2016, when [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) had just secured the Republican nomination. At the time, Trump was calling in for hours to enraptured TV talk show hosts jacking up their ratings. It was a cocaine trade. In return he snorted $5bn in [free media](https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billion-in-free-media-to-the-white-house-13896916) – more than all the other candidates combined. When Trump launched The Apprentice in 2004, a tightly edited fantasy of the six-time bankrupt as king of the heap, he had long been dismissed as a loser and bore in New York. His charade was popcorn fare for out-of-towners. Who knew that the fake reality show’s ultimate winner, announced years after its cancellation, would be [JD Vance](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/jd-vance)? But, in 2016, Trump’s pastiche of fast-talking narcissism, unapologetic insults and brazen lies was eagerly amplified by many of the “leftwing radical media elites” he stuck pins in while the “poorly educated” he claimed to “love” were living the vicarious dream of owning the libs. The shtick was taken as an authentic novelty rather than the rehearsed patter of “John Barron”, his transparent former pseudo-identity as his own huckster. JD Vance, aka Jimmy Bowman, aka James Hamel, isn’t the only one on the Republican ticket with multiple personalities. Trump’s routine was attributed to personal magic that levitated him to become seemingly inevitable. Yet Trump survived time and again, not because he ever won a popularity contest, but through the intercession of others, taken by his true believers to be divine intervention and proof of his higher election. His luck that an odd range of people with motives of their own happened to rescue him from his self-created messes built his mystique, even after he lost. The billionaire grabbing the mic as a stand-up comedian when he [came down the escalator](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/13/donald-trump-presidential-campaign-speech-eyewitness-memories) was laughing gas for many in the media. But the billionaire part itself was an act, since he wasn’t a billionaire, but scamming loans. “You guys have been supporters, and I really appreciate it,” Trump [thanked](https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/the-messy-history-between-trump-morning-joe-1513303338) popular TV hosts for giving him free access on 10 February 2016. “And not necessarily supporters, but at least believers. You said there’s some potential there.” He carried a grievance that he never won an Emmy for his shambolic boss-man routine on The Apprentice. Now, he gloried in the kudos for his performance. He had finally made it, phoning in to talk shows – his art form. His heartfelt racism, misogyny and nativism were mainly excused as the joker’s tradecraft. When the TV talkers called him out, he called them “dumb”, suffering “mental breakdown”, “low IQ”, “crazy”, “psycho”. Yet those taunts were seen as something new and exciting, too. That’s entertainment. Trump had gotten a pass in the city for decades for his fraudulent business practices. “Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is,” said his sage mentor Roy Cohn – or the high-minded district attorney and how to grease his favorite philanthropy. But after the spoiled ne’er-do-well squandered nearly a half-billion dollars of his father’s fortune on casinos, yachts and planes, the New York banks cut him off. He waved his Page Six clippings about his sexual prowess, stories he had invented himself, but the bankers weren’t distracted by his flimsy celebrity. No one has accounted since for the flow of foreign funds through Deutsche Bank and other sources. Many in the media remained mesmerized by the song-and-dance. As the shock president, Trump would supposedly be reined in by the fabled adults in the room. His entourage of misfits couldn’t staff a government. He would be contained by the responsible grown-ups, his administration pressed into the mold of a sort of fourth Bush term, with Trump as the headliner to keep the customers chortling, while the serious business was done in the backroom. The theory was the Oval Office as day care center. The Federalist Society-types squeezed every drop they could out of him – the judges and justices – but the others became his chumps. They beguiled themselves with the illusion that he was their frontman. They hadn’t reckoned that he was a career criminal, not a juvenile delinquent. Eventually it would occur to them, but they kept what they thought was secret knowledge to themselves. Publicly admitting it would pull back the curtain on their embarrassment. Over time, he gratified his sadism by humiliating them one after another, his most personal kind of entertainment. You’re fired! Magnetic attraction was attributed to Trump in defiance of his granitic unpopularity and greater repellence. He never won the popular vote. He lost it by 2.5m in 2016 and 7m in 2020. Throughout his entire presidency, he never crossed the threshold of 50% approval in the [Gallup Poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx#:~:text=High%20point%20was%2049%25%2C%20reached,during%20his%20presidency%20was%2041%25.). He finished with the historically lowest approval rating for a president since polls were first taken. Trump was headed for defeat in 2016 after his final debate with [Hillary Clinton](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/hillary-clinton) on 19 October; four days later, [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/23/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-presidential-polls/index.html) reported their poll showing she held a 13-point lead over him. Five days later, on 28 October, 10 days before the election, the _deus ex machina_ in the form of FBI director James Comey [intervened](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/), in violation of justice department guidelines, to reopen an investigation into Clinton’s emails, to probe whether classified material was on her aide’s husband’s computer, which eight days later, two days before the election, he declared was not there. Two subsequent state department [inquiries](https://www.creators.com/read/joe-conason/09/22/how-many-of-her-emails-were-classified-actually-zero) under the Trump administration would find she never held any classified material on a private email server. Comey’s interference, more than anything else, inspired the myth of Trump’s invincibility. Comey would be one of Trump’s first adult-in-the-room victims when he would not submit the FBI to serve Trump’s direct political orders. Having singularly elevated Trump, his sanctimony could not shield him from his defenestration. In 2020, Trump’s utter incompetence in handling the Covid pandemic cost him re-election. He [told](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-told-bob-woodward-he-knew-february-covid-19-was-n1239658) Bob Woodward of the Washington Post that at its start, “I wanted to always play it down.” When Woodward published Trump’s coldly neglectful remarks, Trump slammed Woodward’s report as “FAKE”. Woodward produced the tapes. Anticipating defeat, Trump called the election “rigged”, organized the scheme to stop the constitutional counting of the electoral college votes on January 6, and incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol. Hang Mike Pence! Supposedly, Trump was done again. The consensus stretching from [Mitch McConnell](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/mitch-mcconnell) to [Joe Biden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joebiden) to [Merrick Garland](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/merrick-garland) was that he would be left by the wayside at Mar-a-Lago to disappear while regular order returned. McConnell had intervened to save Trump twice from removal after impeachments. Garland did nothing to probe Trump’s involvement in the [January 6 insurrection](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-capitol-breach) for 18 months. The lapse was critical to Trump’s ability to mount another presidential campaign. No outside force could halt Trump’s trial in New York for his 34 felony counts paying hush money to an adult film star to manipulate the outcome of the 2016 election. But in the case of his theft of national security documents and obstruction of justice, a federal judge he had appointed, Aileen Cannon, threw monkey wrenches into the process to ensure he would not face justice before the election. In the January 6 case, originally scheduled for 4 March, he appealed to the supreme court, whose conservative majority ruled on 1 July to grant him absolute immunity for his “official actions”. In order to protect him and his candidacy, the court fundamentally twisted the constitution to set the president above the law. The founding fathers and originalism went out the window. If their decision had been in effect during Watergate, Nixon would have walked scot-free. Trump had been rescued from facing the music in the nick of time. “Tell me who the judge is.” Biden demanded an early debate to dispel his age issue. He [imploded](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/27/biden-trump-presidential-debate-atlanta) on 27 June. Trump was saved. The immunity decision, coming three days later, seemed the ratification of his invulnerability. Fate intervened yet again. On 13 July, an [assassin fitting the profile](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/14/trump-rally-suspected-gunman-what-we-know) of a school shooter [missed him](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/13/trump-rally-gun-shots-pennsylvania). Trump arose streaked with blood with an upraised fist. His followers proclaimed his divine salvation. In the rush of triumphalism, he named as his running mate JD Vance, the 39-year-old Ohio senator, lately incarnated as a crusader in the Maga kulturkampf. Finally, on 21 July, Biden recognized his hopelessness and [withdrew from the race](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/21/joe-biden-withdraw-running-president). Circumstances had conspired to coronate Trump the once and future king, invested with the powers of a “dictator on day one” by the supreme court. But at the height of his hubris his nemesis appeared. The bullet that grazed Trump hit Biden. He had been Trump’s perfect foil, a lifelong politician appearing more fossilized than himself. The jack-in-the-box that jumped out was the 19 years younger, vital and unhesitatingly articulate [Kamala Harris](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kamala-harris), whose very appearance unified the Democratic party that seemed about to burst at its seams. The inevitable and invulnerable Trump sank into his old and embittered persona. His close encounter gave him no pause; he underwent no character development. Vance flopped, his numbers the worst of any vice-presidential candidate since Thomas Eagleton dropped out as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 after the revelation of his electro-shock therapy. Trump was aggrieved at the reversal of roles and the reversal of fortunes. Worse, Trump had worn out his material. His rally on 22 July, the day after Biden left the race, was a concert of golden oldies. There was his story about whether he should be electrocuted by a battery-supplied boat or eaten by sharks, the [Hannibal Lecter joke](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/article/2024/jul/25/donald-trump-hannibal-lecter), the Al Capone self-reference, Nancy Pelosi as “Crazy Nancy”, “low IQ” and still running against “Crooked Joe Biden.” Worse than that, he acknowledged his fear that his material was stale. He was filled with performance anxiety. He opened his monologue with an enigmatic: “Whenever I imitate him…” Suddenly, he brought up Melania. “She looked great the other night. She made that entrance. She made a lot of entrances. She’s just something. But she walked in. But I told her the other night, I said, ‘How good was I? How good?’ This was at a rally a couple of weeks ago. ‘How good was I?’ ‘Well, you were really good, but not great.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, it showed that you didn’t know how to get off the stage.’ Well, I was imitating Biden. So, what they do is they show the imitation of Biden. They said, ‘Trump didn’t know how to get off the stage.’ That’s our fake news.” Trump’s stream of consciousness disclosed his worry over his wife’s censorious judgment. He was needy for her praise. She hedged. Her withholding of unreserved flattery sent him spiraling. She suggested he was becoming Biden, someone having trouble selling his act, but Trump protected himself by casting the blame on the media. His awareness of danger to his image provoked an instinctive recoil. Showing him as Willy Loman was the true phoniness. His campaign grasped to find a thread to pull on Harris to unravel her, the equivalent of Biden’s age or Hillary’s emails. They decided to tar her as some kind of leftwinger, but it was the generic Republican negative campaign with risible additions. “Wants To Limit Red Meat Consumption”, Trump [posted](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112895625604098797). He orders his steak burnt and douses it with ketchup. “More Liberal Than Bernie Sanders.” Yawn. Harris was rising, Trump struggling. His young sidekick hired to be his warm-up act, JD Vance, bombed on delivery. Trump was thrown back on himself. His predicament was reminiscent of the flailing music-hall hoofer played by Laurence Olivier in the grim 1960 film, The Entertainer, desperately trying to float his act, shamelessly manipulating and trampling everybody, but incapable of performing anything but the old numbers before a bored audience. So, Trump reached to the bottom of his repertoire. On 31 July, he calculatingly accepted to be interviewed at the [convention of the National Association of Black Journalists](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/31/trump-lies-questions-kamala-harris-racial-identity-nabj), an ideal forum to serve as his backdrop. “I come in good spirits,” he lied. “I was the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.” Then he launched his attack on Harris: “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black? … All of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person … And I think someone should look into that, too.” Trump’s race-baiting is the hoariest of his riffs. He introduced his minstrel show 35 years ago when he took out full-page newspaper advertisements to demand capital punishment for five young Black men who were convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a white female jogger. [The Central Park Five](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york), as they became known, served years in prison, but had been falsely accused and were exonerated. Trump comes by his bigotry naturally. According to his nephew, Fred Trump III, in a new [memoir](https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/23/donald-trump-n-word-book), All In The Family, his uncle used the N-word to blame Black people for a car scratch: “Look what the n-----s did.” A producer for The Apprentice said Trump [used](https://slate.com/culture/2024/05/donald-trump-news-2024-trial-verdict-apprentice.html) the N-word to describe a finalist: “I mean, would America buy a n----- winning?” Trump laid the groundwork for his 2016 presidential run by promoting the birtherism fraud against [Barack Obama](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/barack-obama) that he was not born in the United States. As president, Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries”, And, so on and on. “The same old show,” remarked Harris. “I am the least racist person that you’ve ever encountered,” Trump stated in 2016, when asked about his birther campaign. In attacking Harris’s “roots”, Trump returned to his. Two days after his appearance at the NABJ, Trump “retruthed” a [post](https://truthsocial.com/@LauraLoomer/posts/112887363527418998) on his [Truth Social network](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/31/trump-truth-social-audience) from Laura Loomer, a fringe character in Maga circles notorious for her ethnic slurs, and [labeled](https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2020-09-09/ty-article/loomer-uses-holocaust-imagery-to-attack-jewish-opponent-over-black-lives-matter/0000017f-e976-dc91-a17f-fdfff7fe0000) “disgusting” by the Anti-Defamation League. “I have a copy of Kamala Harris’s birth certificate,” she wrote. “Nowhere on her birth certificate does it say that she is BLACK OR AFRICAN. @KamalaHQ is a liar. Donald Trump is correct. Kamala Harris is NOT black and never has been.” Then, on 3 August, Trump backed out of a scheduled ABC News debate, proposing one on Fox News instead, [issued](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112899344194558383) insults that were obvious projections that Harris “doesn’t have the mental capacity to do a REAL debate against me”, that she was “afraid”, and that she and Biden are “two Low IQ individuals”. He offered as proof of her fear, that she could never “justify”, among other things, “her years long fight to stop the words, ‘Merry Christmas’.” The Entertainer, frantic to hold the crowd’s attention, is hamming it up with his cake walk. But the minstrel show that had once packed them in at the Hippodrome has descended into burlesque. He won’t listen to Melania. “Trump didn’t know how to get off the stage.” * Sid Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist

The US is still not prepared for inevitable Russian attacks on its elections, the former special counsel [Robert Mueller](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/robert-mueller), who investigated Russian interference in 2016 and links between Donald Trump and Moscow, warns in a new book. “It is … evident that Americans have not learned the lessons of Russia’s attack on our democracy in 2016,” Mueller writes in a preface to Interference: The Inside Story of Trump, [Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia) and the Mueller Investigation by Aaron Zebley, James Quarles and Andrew Goldstein, prosecutors who worked for Mueller from 2017 to 2019. Mueller continues: “As we detailed in our report, the evidence was clear that the Russian government engaged in multiple, systematic attacks designed to undermine our democracy and favor one candidate over the other.” That candidate was Trump, the Republican who beat the Democrat, Hillary Clinton, for the White House. “We were not prepared then,” Mueller writes, “and, despite many efforts of dedicated people across the government, we are not prepared now. This threat deserves the attention of every American. Russia attacked us before and will do so again.” Interference will be [published](https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/untitled-s-s-nf-if-to-be-confirmed-simon-schuster/7709017) in the US next week. The Guardian obtained a copy. Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein tell the story of the Mueller investigation, from its beginnings in May 2017 after Trump [fired the FBI director](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/09/james-comey-fbi-fired-donald-trump), James Comey, to its conclusion in March 2019 with moves by William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, to [obscure and dismiss](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/24/mueller-report-donald-trump-william-barr) Mueller’s findings. Mueller did not establish collusion between Trump and Moscow but did initiate criminal proceedings against three Russian entities and 34 people, with those convicted including a Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was jailed. Mueller also laid out [10 instances](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-elections-james-comey-north-america-e0d125d737be4a21a81bec3d9f1dffd8) of possible obstruction of justice by Trump. Though he did not indict Trump, citing justice department policy regarding sitting presidents, Mueller [said](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/mueller-i-did-not-clear-trump-of-obstruction-of-justice) he was not clearing him either. Mueller now says Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein “care deeply about the rule of law and know the importance of making decisions with integrity and humility”, adding: “These qualities matter most when some refuse to play by the rules, and others are urging you to respond in kind.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/18/russia-election-interference-robert-mueller#img-2) Photograph: Simon & Schuster The FBI director from 2001 to 2013, Mueller was 72 and widely admired for his rectitude when he was made special counsel. His former prosecutors describe a White House meeting preceding that appointment. In an atmosphere of high tension, Mueller made his entry “via a warren of passages beneath the Eisenhower Executive Office Building”, thereby avoiding the press. Trump, who wanted Mueller to return as FBI director, “did most of the talking” but though he praised Mueller richly, Mueller declined the offer. As the authors write, Trump “would later [claim](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-again-claims-mueller-wanted-to-return-as-fbi-director-an-assertion-mueller-disputes/2019/07/24/bf78e6c2-ae2f-11e9-bc5c-e73b603e7f38_story.html) that Bob came to the meeting asking to be FBI director”, and that Trump “turned him down”. “This was false,” the prosecutors write. Soon after the White House interview, the New York Times [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html) memos kept by Comey about Trump’s request to shut down an investigation of Michael Flynn, the national security adviser who [resigned](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/13/michael-flynn-resigns-quits-trump-national-security-adviser-russia) after lying about contacts with the Russian ambassador. Soon after that, Mueller was appointed special counsel. Trump escaped punishment arising from Mueller’s work but did lose the White House in 2020, when he was beaten by Joe Biden. Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein’s book arrives as another election looms, with Trump in a tight race with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and shortly after US authorities [outlined](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/04/russia-accused-of-trying-to-influence-us-voters-through-online-campaign) how pro-Trump influencers were paid large sums by Russia. On Tuesday, a new threat intelligence report from Microsoft [said](https://apnews.com/article/russia-disinformation-foreign-influence-election-microsoft-7f802f9f4a0efe206fdaad29516b1f7f) Russia was accelerating covert influence efforts against Harris. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/18/russia-election-interference-robert-mueller#EmailSignup-skip-link-15) Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion US presidential elections are often the subject of “October surprises”, late-breaking scandals which can tilt a race. In 2016, October brought both Trump’s [Access Hollywood scandal](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/donald-trump-leaked-recording-women), in which he was recorded bragging about sexual assault, and the release by WikiLeaks of Democratic emails [hacked by Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/wikileaks-hillary-clinton-paid-wall-street-speeches). In Interference, Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein tell how the Mueller team came to its conclusion that Russia boosted Trump in 2016. They also detail attempts to interview Trump that were blocked by his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani among them. Describing how the former New York mayor betrayed a promise to keep an April 2018 meeting confidential, speaking openly if inaccurately to the press, the authors say Mueller “decided he would never again meet or speak with Giuliani – and he never did. For Bob it was a matter of trust.” More than six years on, Giuliani faces criminal charges arising from his work to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat, as well as [costly civil proceedings](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/30/georgia-election-workers-giuliani-assets-defamation-case). Trump also faces civil penalties and criminal charges, having been convicted on 34 counts in New York over hush-money payments made before the 2016 election. Though Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein focus on the Russia investigation, in doing so they voice dismay regarding the US supreme court, to which Trump appointed three rightwing justices and which has this year twice cast his criminal cases into doubt. The authors describe how Mueller’s team decided not to subpoena Trump for in-person testimony, given delays one Trump attorney said would result from inevitable “war” on the matter. Looking ahead, the authors consider new supreme court opinions that will shape such face-offs in future. [Fischer v United States](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jun/28/supreme-court-january-6-rioters), the authors say, narrows the scope of the obstruction of justice statute “that was the focus of volume II of our report”. More dramatically, in [Trump v United States](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/16/supreme-court-john-roberts-trump-immunity-ruling), the court held “that a president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution when carrying out ‘core’ constitutional functions … and has ‘presumptive’ immunity for all ‘official actions’”. Though the court ruled a president was not immune for “unofficial actions”, Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein warn that it nonetheless “sharply limited the areas of presidential conduct that can be subject to criminal investigation – permitting a president to use his or her power in wholly corrupt ways without the possibility of prosecution”.

It was the spring of 2018 and President Donald J. Trump, faced with an accelerating inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia, was furious that the Justice Department was reluctant to strike back at those he saw as his enemies. In an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump told startled aides that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not order the department to go after Hillary Clinton and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump would prosecute them himself. Recognizing the extraordinary dangers of a president seeking not just to weaponize the criminal justice system for political ends but trying as well to assume personal control over who should be investigated and charged, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, sought to stall. “How about I do this?” Mr. McGahn told Mr. Trump, according to an account verified by witnesses. “I’m going to write you a memo explaining to you what the law is and how it works, and I’ll give that memo to you and you can decide what you want to do.” The episode marked the start of a more aggressive effort by Mr. Trump to deploy his power against his perceived enemies despite warnings not to do so by top aides. And [a look back at the cases of 10 individuals](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/21/us/trump-opponents-investigations.html) brings a pattern into clearer focus: After Mr. Trump made repeated public or private demands for them to be targeted by the government, they faced federal pressure of one kind or another. The broad outlines of those episodes have been previously reported. But a closer examination reveals the degree of concern and pushback against Mr. Trump’s demands inside the White House. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html).

 This presidential cycle has challenged the rules and precedents of our political system so often that it’s no surprise it’s posing a challenge for the “October surprise.” As the month of October goes on, media usage of the phrase only escalates. Yet nothing seems yet to fill the bill. Now well into its fifth decade, that familiar phrase has become such a staple of punditry as to suggest it has standing on the official calendar. But of course there is nothing official about the October surprise. It exists in the mind of the beholder. And there’s usually room for debate about how much any unusual event late in the campaign really matters to the outcome. Suffice it to say, the phrase is used far more often than it is justified. The phrase has long suggested an event or development emerging unexpectedly in the closing weeks of the campaign to upend the contest, flip the script or at least reverse the momentum of the race.  But even if nothing takes place that really matches the description, the phrase gets a workout every four years. Campaigns are always looking for new ways to gain advantage or to cry foul — and we in the media are hungry for new twists or different ways to dramatize the contest. Thus we have lately heard “October surprise” applied to [a judge’s order unsealing evidence](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/02/nx-s1-5137303/trump-election-interference-jack-smith-immunity-jan-6) in the January 6, 2021 insurrection case against former President Donald Trump. We have heard the label thrown at the short-lived [dock workers’ strike](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5139450/dockworkers-port-strike-deal) and the uptick in oil prices. It's even been bandied about in critiques of the new book _War_ by investigative reporter Bob Woodward, which says Trump sent precious COVID-19 testing equipment [to Russian leader Vladimir Putin](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/08/nx-s1-5146501/trump-putin-covid-tests) at the height of the pandemic — even as many Americans were unable to procure their own. Surely each of these stories has had meaning and effect. But it’s hard to say any has been a game changer, especially when the polls seem frozen in place. The last time we saw the race truly change was when President Biden pulled out and the Democratic nomination was shifted to Vice President Harris. This month has been unusually heavy with news of war in the Middle East and Hurricanes [Helene](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5144216/climate-change-hurricane-helene) and [Milton](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5149899/florida-airports-amusement-parks-reopen-as-officials-weigh-damage-from-hurricane-milton) devastating swaths of the Southeast. And there has been no shortage of stories and shifting narratives in the presidential race, accompanied each day by a fresh crop of polls from swing states. But several of these have been part of a larger process — such as the legal system or the hurricane season — with its own rhythms and timetables. So none so far has had the true element of surprise that would seem necessary for an actual October _surprise_. Nonetheless, campaigns regularly fling the phrase as an accusation, adding at least a whiff of skullduggery. This air of suspicion attaches most often to the incumbent party in the White House, which is presumed to be able to deploy government agencies and other powerful forces for partisan purposes. ### Origin in the race of 1980 That implication dates back to what appears to be the phrase’s origin in the campaign of 1980. Republican nominee Ronald Reagan’s campaign chief, William Casey, had been warning the media (and the voters) for months to watch out for a sudden development — an “October surprise” — that might resolve the Iran hostage crisis just before Election Day. Casey was anticipating a sudden release of the more than 50 hostages who had been imprisoned inside the U.S. Embassy for a year after the Islamist revolution of 1979. Many Republicans feared the months-long negotiations to gain the hostages’ release would suddenly bear fruit just before Election Day. If that were to happen, they reasoned, a grateful nation might look at incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter with new appreciation. Had that happened, it is not hard to imagine the media frenzy that would have followed. Americans who were alive at the time can easily recall the upwelling of relief and joy that greeted the hostages when Iran did finally free them on the day Carter left office and Reagan’s presidency began. ### The fear and the phrase persist Ever since that fateful fall, the memory of the October surprise that did not happen in 1980 has been revived — at least as a prompt for speculation and a goad to disagreement. Presidential campaigns and the media who follow them have searched in each cycle for something that would really fulfill the fears of one campaign and give fresh hope to the other. We have seen presidential contests take a notable turn in the final weeks of the campaign, and at least as often we have heard potentially meaningful events described as an October surprise. In 1992, incumbent President George H.W. Bush was staging something of a comeback in the fall against the upstart Democratic nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Then former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted for his role years earlier in what had been called the Iran-Contra scandal. The case involved the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for Iran’s assistance in winning the release of a different set of hostages during Reagan’s White House tenure. It brought back the worst memories of Bush’s years as Reagan’s vice president and blunted his late drive.  Something similar occurred in 2000 when George W. Bush was running for president against Democratic nominee Al Gore. Just five days before Election Day it was revealed that the younger Bush had a previously undisclosed drunk driving arrest on the books. Gore won the popular vote that fall, but Bush managed to eke out a historically narrow win in the Electoral College. Bush’s campaign manager, Karl Rove, insisted thereafter that Bush had suffered from low turnout among evangelical voters troubled by the drunk driving story. In 2008, the presidential race between Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain of Arizona was too close to call in early September. Then the landmark investment bank Lehman Brothers went under in mid-September and precipitated a Wall Street panic unlike any since 1929. The signs of the meltdown over mortgage-backed securities had been flashing red for a year, but in the election context the financial crisis was truly an October surprise and a crucial factor in Obama’s historic win. Four years later, Republican nominee Mitt Romney was bruised when caught on tape referring to “47 percent” of the voters as “dependent” on government programs. While that story broke in late September it was still reverberating for weeks thereafter, weakening Romney in the home stretch. ### Did an October story make the difference? While late-breaking stories may well tip the scales for some voters, their actual effect can be difficult to measure. It is not uncommon for some political actors and media to call a late-breaking story an October surprise when there is little evidence that it mattered that much. One such occasion was the 2016 contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In early October much of the nation was shocked to hear the bawdy way Trump spoke of women while preparing to tape a 2005 episode of the TV show _Access Hollywood._ Major figures in the party such as national chairman Reince Priebus denounced the remarks and privately told Trump he would lose in a landslide. But Trump seemed unperturbed. First Lady Melania Trump gave interviews agreeing with her husband’s dismissal of it all as “locker room talk” and conservative media generally fell in line. While the release of the tape probably cost him some votes, he still managed to win the Electoral College.  In the same month, however, a different release had quite a different effect. James Comey, the FBI director, told the chairman of a congressional committee that a new file of Hillary Clinton’s private emails [had been found](https://www.npr.org/2016/10/28/499770889/anthony-weiner-investigation-leads-fbi-back-to-clinton-email-server-case) during the course of an unrelated investigation. Her emails, long a source of controversy as they involved some official business from her time as Secretary of State, were suddenly back in the news in a big way. By the time Comey announced that no new evidence was found in the emails, the focus and momentum of the campaign had shifted. Clinton would win the popular vote, but fall short in the Electoral College due to narrow losses in several swing states. Just as ambiguous was the 2020 impact of Trump’s personal bout with COVID-19. Did it hurt him or help that he went to the hospital in October with a serious case of a disease he had all but dismissed earlier in his re-election year? Was there a sympathy vote or a rally-round effect when he returned to the White House and dramatically removed his hospital mask? ### The campaign of 2024 marks its own trail This year, there may just be too much happening for one story to be as pivotal as the October surprise is supposed to be. We have two wars happening in Ukraine and the Middle East. The U.S. is heavily involved and is a major supplier of arms to one side in each of these wars. We have had a historic hurricane season that has spread death and destruction far beyond the coastline communities that prepare for such storms. We have new peaks of tech achievement through artificial intelligence and historic levels of income disparity that recall the “Gilded Age” of the late 1800s. And we have had a campaign season in which a former president has returned to be nominated again for the first time since 1892. We also have an incumbent president who has chosen not to seek another term for the first time in almost 60 years. And a major party has not only nominated a woman — but a woman of color whose parents were immigrants.  All these powerful storylines have already contributed to an election unlike any other. So perhaps the notion of one late story breaking through and turning the race on its head is itself an anachronism at this point. As greater numbers of voters choose to vote early, especially by mail, the significance of any and all October events is decreased. It is possible too that the original concept of a blockbuster revelation late in the campaign will be another victim of our age of distrust in the media. Where there were once three dominant TV news sources, we now have countless sources of video and audio with widely disparate points of view and approaches to the news itself. Extreme partisanship and the deceptive powers of AI have made it more difficult for any particular piece of information to be accepted by the electorate as a whole. Nonetheless, the notion of a transforming turn of events in the eleventh hour remains powerful in the imagination. And like a Halloween hobgoblin it will hover over us at least until October 31.

I remember when Donald Trump was not normal. I remember when Trump was a fever that would break. I remember when Trump was [running as a joke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oT_4RJx4G0). I remember when Trump was best [covered in the entertainment section.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-note-about-our-coverage-of-donald-trumps-campaign_n_55a8fc9ce4b0896514d0fd66) I remember when Trump would never become the Republican nominee. I remember when Trump couldn’t win the general election. I remember when Trump’s attacks on John McCain were disqualifying. I remember when Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape would force him out. I remember when Trump was James Comey’s fault. I remember when Trump was the news media’s fault. I remember when Trump won because Hillary Clinton was unlikable. I remember when 2016 was a fluke. I remember when the office of the presidency would temper Trump. I remember when the adults in the room would contain him. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html).

Donald Trump announced that he [intends to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)](https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/13/politics/matt-gaetz-attorney-general?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_google) to serve as his attorney general. Gaetz is a longtime Trump loyalist, who will likely be tasked with remaking the Department of Justice. The department has traditionally adhered to strong norms against interference by the president; Trump and his allies have been explicit [in arguing that should change](https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/381094/trump-second-term-2024-election-justice-department-civil-rights). Trump has also repeatedly called for legal action against his political enemies, including [promising](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-2024-kamala-harris-elizabeth-cheney-threat-civil-liberties) to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” in 2023. Enforcing those sorts of threats would fall to Gaetz, if he is confirmed by the Senate. Before being nominated to be attorney general, Gaetz was probably best known for two things. One is his [longstanding feud with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy](https://www.vox.com/2023/10/1/23898555/kevinn-mccarthy-speakership-matt-gaetz) (R-CA), who was eventually ousted in no small part because of Gaetz. The other is the string of sexual misconduct allegations. Gaetz denies these allegations, and the Department of Justice [dropped its investigation into them in 2023](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/doj-decides-not-charge-rep-matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation-rcna70839). If Gaetz does end up running that same department, he’ll be in a uniquely powerful role. He would be tasked with overseeing all federal prosecutions, providing legal advice to the president and the Cabinet, and would have the final say on any legal stance that the United States takes in court. Of greater significance perhaps is the fact that Gaetz would have enormous authority over who is prosecuted, who is allowed to get away with committing federal crimes, and who might be targeted for politically motivated prosecutions in an authoritarian administration. Trump has repeatedly promised “[retribution](https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/382696/donald-trump-wins-2024-election-results-democracy)” against his Democratic rivals. And his fellow Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled last July that he can order the Justice Department to [bring politically motivated prosecutions without consequence](https://www.vox.com/scotus/366855/supreme-court-trump-immunity-betrayal-worst-decisions-anticanon). In the first Trump administration, Trump reportedly wanted to [order the Justice Department to prosecute](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18105462/trump-clinton-comey-order-justice) his former political opponent Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey, but was dissuaded from doing so by White House Counsel Don McGahn. Gaetz’s strong support for Trump, by contrast, makes it seem he’s much less likely to resist such an order. Gaetz has a law degree, and he [did previously practice law in northwest Florida](https://gaetz.house.gov/about). He’s been a representative since 2017, and became known both for stunts on the House floor — like wearing a [gas mask](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/gaetz-coronavirus-gas-mask/index.html) to protest masking policies during the coronavirus pandemic — as well as his [staunch support for Trump](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/23/20929023/house-republicans-impeachment-stunt-trump). The allegations arose out of his relationship with Joel Greenberg, a former county-level tax collector who was [sentenced to 11 years in prison](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/01/politics/joel-greenberg-sentencing/index.html) by a federal judge in 2022. Greenberg pled guilty to a wide range of crimes, including underage sex trafficking, wire fraud, identity theft, and conspiring to defraud the federal government. Judge Gregory Presnell, who sentenced Greenberg, said that he’s “never seen a defendant who has committed so many different types of crimes in such a relatively short period.” According to CNN, Greenberg also “cooperated extensively with the Justice Department’s [sex-trafficking probe into GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/01/politics/joel-greenberg-sentencing/index.html).” Among other things, Greenberg reportedly told investigators that he [witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4751778-matt-gaetz-joel-greenberg-sex-trafficking-florida/). (Gaetz in 2021 issued a blanket denial of the allegations via a statement from his office, writing: “No part of the allegations against me are true.”) As a general rule, sex offenses such as soliciting prostitution are handled by state-level prosecutors, as the Constitution only gives the federal government [limited authority over sex crimes](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3801442224983217117&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr). The US Justice Department can get involved, however, in narrow circumstances. The Justice Department’s investigation into Gaetz looked into [whether he had sex with this teenager and paid for her to travel with him](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation.html). It is a [federal crime](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2423#g) to transport someone across state lines, with the intent that they engage in prostitution or “illicit sexual conduct.” The most serious violations of this statute carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. In any event, the Justice Department [eventually decided not to charge Gaetz](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/doj-decides-not-charge-rep-matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation-rcna70839). Its reasons for declining to do so have not been made public, but the lack of charges does not necessarily clear him of the allegations. Meanwhile, a [House ethics investigation into Gaetz remains ongoing](https://abcnews.go.com/US/witness-tells-house-ethics-committee-matt-gaetz-paid/story?id=111217102). According to ABC News, one woman told the House committee investigating Gaetz that [the member of Congress paid her for sex](https://abcnews.go.com/US/witness-tells-house-ethics-committee-matt-gaetz-paid/story?id=111217102). Others have said they were paid to attend parties that Gaetz also attended, where attendees used drugs and had sex. Again, Gaetz has denied any misconduct. As of yet, it’s unclear whether a majority of senators will vote to confirm Gaetz as attorney general. But there’s some evidence that many Republicans will be turned off by the sex crimes allegations against Gaetz, and by his generally poor reputation on Capitol Hill. In 2023, for example, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said that “[there’s a reason why no one in the \[Republican\] conference defended](https://x.com/mkraju/status/1709765049051381761)” Gaetz after seeing some of the evidence against him. As [New York Times columnist Ezra Klein writes](https://x.com/ezraklein/status/1856798502484910130), Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz should be read as an effort to gauge whether Republican senators will permit him to take absurd and dangerous actions. “These aren’t just appointments,” Klein writes of Gaetz and Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, “They’re loyalty tests. The absurdity is the point.” You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country. Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change. We rely on readers like you — join us.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief See More: * [Criminal Justice](https://www.vox.com/criminal-justice) * [Donald Trump](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump) * [Policy](https://www.vox.com/policy) * [Politics](https://www.vox.com/politics)

Matt Gaetz, who savaged the Justice Department and the F.B.I. as Donald J. Trump’s off-leash political guard dog, faces an uphill fight to becoming attorney general. But his selection has already achieved one desired effect: intimidating an already-frazzled federal law enforcement work force. During his campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to exact revenge against officials who prosecuted him. That threat is particularly acute for the F.B.I., which has been in his cross hairs since it opened an investigation into his campaign’s connection to Russia in 2016. Mr. Gaetz, a former Florida Republican congressman who was the focus of a federal investigation into sex-trafficking allegations, has positioned himself as the right guy for that job, an avenger who will tear down and rebuild a Justice Department that twice indicted Mr. Trump, with the close cooperation of the bureau’s agents. “People trusted the F.B.I. more when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place than when you are,” Mr. Gaetz told Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, [during a testy oversight hearing in 2023](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/us/politics/christopher-wray-fbi-house-judiciary-committee.html), invoking the name of its imperious and secretive founding director. “And the reason is because you don’t give straight answers.” Whatever the outcome of his nomination, the fact that he was selected at all was intended to send an unmistakable message to the nonpolitical career officials who form the backbone of federal law enforcement: Get in line or get out — and maybe get a lawyer. All of this has sent a wave of uncertainty throughout Justice Department and F.B.I. headquarters, perhaps unlike anything experienced by the federal law enforcement establishment since Mr. Trump [fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, in 2017](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html). Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html).

[Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) is keeping his controversial adviser Kash Patel in the running to be the next FBI director, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the transition team conducted interviews for the role on Monday night at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club. The existence of the interviews, made public in a since-deleted post by the vice president-elect [JD Vance](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/jd-vance), underscored the intent to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, years before his current term is up. [ Trump’s cabinet and White House picks – so far ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/19/trump-cabinet-picks-administration-appointees) Vance revealed that he and Trump had been interviewing finalists for [FBI](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) director in a post responding to criticism he received for missing a Senate vote last night that confirmed one of Joe Biden’s nominees for the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit. “When this 11th circuit vote happened, I was meeting President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI director,” Vance wrote. Trump has a special interest in the FBI, having fired James Comey as director in 2017 over his refusal to close the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and then complaining about perceived disloyalty from Wray. Patel’s continued position as a top candidate for the role makes clear Trump’s determination to install loyalists in key national security and law enforcement positions, as well as the support Patel has built up among key Trump allies. The push for Patel – who has frequently railed against the “deep state” – has come from some of the longest-serving Trump advisers, notably those close to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, a faction that got Trump’s personal lawyers picked for top justice department roles. That faction has also suggested to Trump in recent days that if Patel gets passed over for the director role, he should be given the deputy FBI director position, one of the people said – a powerful job that helps run the bureau day to day and is crucially not subject to Senate confirmation. Patel has made inroads with Trump by repeatedly demonstrating his loyalty over several years and articulating plans to restructure the FBI, including by dismantling the firewall between the White House and the bureau. During the criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents, for instance, Patel refused to testify against Trump before a federal grand jury in Washington and asserted his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. Patel [ultimately testified only after he was forced to](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/02/trump-advisor-kash-patel-immunity-mar-a-lago-documents), when the then chief US district judge Beryl Howell allowed the justice department to confer limited immunity from prosecution to him to overcome his fifth amendment claim. But Patel also has multiple detractors among other Trump advisers who came from the presidential campaign and carry outsize influence. That group is said to prefer former House intelligence committee chair Mike Rogers, who left Congress in 2015. Rogers is generally seen as a more establishment pick who has experience dealing with intelligence agencies, one of his allies said. But Trump has also suggested to advisers he is less interested in Rogers than Patel, the person said. Still, Trump has increasingly paid little attention to whether a nominee is likely to be confirmed by the Senate, evidenced by his move to pick Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary despite both being dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct. Patel rose to notoriety in 2018 when he served as an aide to Devin Nunes, who was the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, and became involved in attempts by the White House to discredit the Russia investigation. He then went to work for the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) in 2019 on the national security council, before becoming chief of staff to the defense secretary in the final months of the presidency. In 2020, when Trump weighed firing the then CIA director Gina Haspel, he floated Patel as a potential replacement. Patel was also briefly considered to become the deputy FBI director in the waning months of the presidency but was talked out of the appointment.

Donald Trump has tapped Kashyap “Kash” Patel to be FBI director, nominating a [loyalist and “deep state” critic](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/19/trump-kash-patel-fbi-director) to lead the federal law enforcement agency that the president-elect has long slammed as corrupt. Patel, 44, has worked as [a federal prosecutor and a public defender](https://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/2418491/kashyap-p-patel/) but rose to prominence in Trump circles after expressing outrage over the agency’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. He has called for the FBI leadership to be fired as part of a drive to bring federal law enforcement “to heel.” If confirmed, Patel would replace Christopher Wray, the [FBI](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) director who was appointed by Trump in 2017 after the then-president fired James Comey over the FBI’s Russia collusion probe. Comey later testified to Congress there was no evidence of any collusion but the FBI had a “basis for investigating” the matter. Patel had ties to former Republican representative Devin Nunes, who led opposition to the Russia probe by special counsel Robert Muller while serving as chair of the House intelligence committee. In making his nomination for FBI director, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that Patel “is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.” [ Trump cabinet picks shaped by new power centers in his orbit ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/29/trump-administration-influence-cabinet) “Kash will work under our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI,” Trump added. Trump noted Patel’s service as chief of staff at the department of defense, deputy director of national intelligence, and senior director for counter-terrorism at the national security council during his first term. Patel, he said, “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.” “This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border”, he said. If confirmed by the senate – Gina Haspel, CIA director during Trump’s first term, reportedly threatened to resign in 2020 when Trump sought to install Patel as her deputy – Patel will likely prove a loyal agent of Trump’s desire to reform what the president-elect considers Washington’s bureaucratic overreach. Patel told the Conservative Political Action Conference in July it was necessary to “identify the people in government that are crippling our constitutional republic”. Trump has called Patel’s 2023 book “Government Gangsters”, in which he argued for firing of government employees who undermine the president’s agenda, a “blueprint to take back the White House”. The reforms Patel outlined in the book “to defeat the deep state” include moving the FBI headquarters from Washington to “curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship” and to reduce the general counsel’s office, which he claimed had taken on “prosecutorial decision-making”.

 President-elect Donald Trump intends to install Kash Patel, a close ally and former national security aide who has berated the Justice Department and the news media, to replace Christopher Wray as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump wrote in a post on social media Saturday that Patel is a "brilliant lawyer, investigator, and 'America First' fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People." Patel came to national attention as a congressional aide investigating the feds who were probing Russian interference in the 2016 election, before he pivoted into roles in Trump's National Security Council and Pentagon. He's a regular on right-wing podcasts, where he has issued threats to prosecute political adversaries. Patel also pledged to shutter the FBI headquarters "on day one" and to disperse employees there across the country. "We're absolutely dead serious," Patel told podcaster Steve Bannon after the November election. Patel, 44, is a former Justice Department prosecutor turned fierce critic of that agency. He wrote a book promising to hollow out the DOJ and the FBI by cleaning house and sweeping out their senior ranks. Patel also said he wants to declassify reams of government secrets, and to wrest security clearances away from people who investigated Trump. The FBI director serves a 10-year term in office, across multiple presidential administrations, in an effort to shield the bureau from partisan political pressure. The job requires Senate confirmation. In response to the announcement, the FBI issued a statement: "Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. Director Wray's focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for." Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after firing predecessor Jim Comey. Wray has signaled he wants to serve out the remainder of his term. But his relationship with Trump has been a tense one. Near the end of the first Trump administration, then-President Trump attempted to put Patel in a senior role at the Central Intelligence Agency, but senior leaders at the CIA and the Justice Department blocked the move.

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked a former aide, Kash Patel, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency Patel has often criticised. A former US defence department chief of staff in the first Trump administration, Patel has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming Republican president. For Patel to take the job, the current FBI director Christopher Wray would need to resign or be fired - although Trump did not call on him to do so in his post. Separately, Trump said he plans to nominate Chad Chronister, sheriff of Florida's Hillsborough County, as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Patel and Chronister join Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi in filling out Trump's law enforcement picks. Also on Saturday, Trump [announced he had has selected Charles Kushner](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qdq9z7pjzo) to be ambassador to France. Mr Kushner is a real-estate developer and the father of Jared Kushner, husband of his daughter Ivanka Trump. The nomination appears to be the first administration position that Trump has formally offered to a relative since his re-election. All three choices will have to be confirmed by a majority vote in the US Senate. Patel is Trump loyalist who shares the president-elect's suspicion of government institutions. "Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and 'America First' fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice, and protecting the American people," Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, adding that Patel was "an advocate for truth, accountability, and the constitution". His past proposals have included “dramatically” limiting the FBI’s authority. In his memoir, Government Gangsters, Patel called for an eradication of what he called "government tyranny" within the FBI by firing "the top ranks”. Patel would replace current FBI director Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed in 2017 for a 10-year term. But Wray fell out of favour with the president elect when the FBI assisted with a federal probe into Trump's handling of classified records, [a case that has since been dropped](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gvd7kxxj5o). In a statement following Trump's announcement, the FBI said: "Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. "Director Wray's focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for." The son of Indian immigrants, Patel is a former defence lawyer and federal prosecutor who caught Trump’s eye after he became a senior counsel to the House of Representatives intelligence committee in 2017. He was hired by Trump as a national security aide in 2019 and a year later was appointed chief of staff to the head of the Pentagon. As well as his 2023 memoir, he has published two pro-Trump children’s books. One of the titles, The Plot Against the King, features a villain, Hillary Queenton, trying to depose King Donald, who is aided by a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer. Another villain is called Keeper Komey - a thinly-veiled reference to former FBI Director James Comey - and his “spying slugs”, according to the book’s blurb. Patel has often railed against the so-called “deep state”, which some Americans believe is an unelected bureaucratic machine that secretly runs the country for sinister purposes. Patel has also excoriated the media, which he has called “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen”. He is also on the board of Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the incoming president’s social media platform Truth Social. Patel reportedly has had a consulting contract with the company that paid him at least $120,000 a year. Getty Images Chad Chronister and his wife Nikki DeBartolo pictured during a trip to New York City in 2020 Chronister also comes with a long background in law enforcement. He has worked in law enforcement in Florida for 32 years, according to his official bio, and he has served as the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, Florida, since 2017. On social media, Trump praised Chronister's experience and reiterated his focus on drugs and the US border. "As DEA Administrator, Chad will work with our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to secure the border, stop the flow of fentanyl, and other illegal drugs, across the southern border, and SAVE LIVES", Trump wrote. Writing on social media, Chronister said it was "the honor of a lifetime to be nominated" by Trump. "I am deeply humbled by this opportunity to serve our nation."

A Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation aimed at finding leakers during Donald Trump’s first presidency resulted in invasive searches of congressional staffers’ phone and email records, often without specific cause or the prior approval of the attorney general, a report published on Tuesday has found. In findings that may trigger concerns of how Trump’s incoming administration will behave, the department’s inspector general [concluded](https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/25-010.pdf) that DoJ lawyers overreached their authority in their inquiries aimed at discovering who was leaking classified information in 2017, in the early phases of the president-elect’s first stint in the White House. The phone records of two Congress members and 43 staffers – including 21 Democrats and 20 Republicans, along with two holding non-partisan roles – were sought in an aggressive effort to find the source of leaks following the firing of James Comey, the former FBI director, who was ousted by Trump. Although Michael Horowitz’s 96-page report did not identify those whose records had been searched, [CNN reported](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/10/politics/justice-department-spying-congress-patel-trump-ig-report/index.html) that they included Kash Patel, whom Trump has nominated to be the next FBI director. Patel was a staff member of the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee at the time of the DoJ leak inquiry. Others included the then House member, and recently elected Democratic senator, Adam Schiff – branded as an “enemy within” by Trump in his successful recent presidential election campaign – and Eric Swalwell, another Democratic representative. DoJ prosecutors also sought the records of journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN as part of the investigation. The subpoenaing of reporters’ records during the first Trump administration has been [previously reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/us/trump-administration-phone-records-times-reporters.html) and was described as “simply, simply wrong” by Joe Biden in 2021, leading to the DoJ announcing it would no longer seek a legal process to find out journalists’ sources. Since his first presidency, Trump has [pledged to jail reporters](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/22/nx-s1-5161480/trump-media-threats-abc-cbs-60-minutes-journalists) who do not divulge their sources on stories he considers to have national security implications – a threat now carrying greater weight with his imminent return to the White House. Horowitz said many of the congressional records had been obtained without just cause and, as such, put Congress’s constitutional oversight function of the executive branch at risk. “\[D\]ozens of congressional staffers became part of the subject pool in a federal criminal investigation for doing nothing more than performing constitutionally authorized oversight of the executive branch,” he wrote. “We believe that using compulsory process to obtain such records when based solely on the close proximity in time between access to the classified information and subsequent publication of the information – which was the case with most of the process issued for non-content communications records of congressional staff in the investigations we examined – risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch.” The report said DoJ prosecutors did not take into account important constitutional principles governing the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The subpoenas requested records of whom staff had spoken to and for how long, rather than the content of their conversations. However, even such limited requests amounted to an encroachment on Congress’s constitutional powers, the report suggested. It stated: “Even non-content communications records – such as those predominantly sought here – can reveal the fact of sensitive communications of members of Congress and staffers, including with executive branch whistleblowers and with interest groups engaging in First Amendment activity.” Criticism of the department for over-zealousness during Trump’s first administration seems ironic given his insistent claims that it was weaponised against him after he left office to press criminal charges that he has dismissed as a political witch-hunt and which he has demanded be purged. It may also foreshadow developments in his forthcoming presidency after he nominated a staunch loyalist, Pam Bondi, as attorney general, after his original pick, Matt Gaetz, stepped aside amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to bring the DoJ under direct White House control, in contrast with the quasi-independent status it has held since the Watergate era. He has also spoken of using it to pursue his political opponents and enemies.

Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, told bureau employees today that he would [resign before Donald Trump took office in January](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/11/us/trump-news). In his address, Wray said he believed the move was “the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray.” Wray still had more than two years left of his 10-year term, a length that Congress established in part to distance the bureau from partisan politics. But Trump announced last month that he planned to replace Wray, whom he said he was “very unhappy with,” with a longtime loyalist, Kash Patel. Trump greeted Wray’s announcement by declaring it “a great day for America.” Wray, whom Trump appointed in 2017 after he fired James Comey, oversaw one of the most consequential and tumultuous periods in the agency’s history. His bureau juggled high-profile investigations of political figures, including Trump and President Biden, along with mass shootings, cyberattacks and threats from geopolitical rivals like China, Iran and Russia. His apparent successor could not be more different. Patel, a former federal prosecutor and public defender, [is a fierce critic of the F.B.I. and has vowed to fire its leadership](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/us/politics/kash-patel-fbi.html) and root out the president-elect’s perceived enemies in what he calls the “deep state.” The scene of the killing of Brian Thompson in Manhattan.Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html).

 FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday announced he would resign from the bureau at the end of the Biden administration next month, with more than two years remaining on his term in office. "My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you're doing on behalf of the American people every day," he told employees at an FBI town hall, according to an excerpt the FBI shared with reporters. "In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work." President-elect Donald Trump in a [post on Truth Social](https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/28578) called Wray's resignation "a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice." The FBI director reports to the Department of Justice. "I just don't know what happened to him." Trump had already said he [would nominate Kash Patel](https://www.npr.org/2024/11/30/g-s1-34479/trump-kash-patel-fbi-director), a close ally and former national security aide, to replace Wray. "We want our FBI back, and that will now happen," Trump said in the post, referring to his pick of Patel. The president-elect made the FBI a frequent target during his first term in the White House. He nominated Wray to head the FBI, which Wray has led since 2017. But Trump's relationship with Wray grew tense as FBI agents helped investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, and then worked with a special counsel to prosecute Trump for hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and attempting to cling to power in 2020. Trump most recently criticized Wray during his first sit-down broadcast interview since being elected to a second term in the White House. He pointed in particular to the FBI's work searching Mar-a-Lago and not doing enough to address crime, [when asked](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-interview-meet-press-kristen-welker-election-president-rcna182857) on NBC's _Meet the Press With Kristen Welker_ about whether he'd fire Wray when he gets into office. But Trump also appeared to be personally offended by something Wray said earlier this summer: speaking at a congressional hearing after the first assassination attempt against Trump, Wray initially speculated on whether Trump's bloodied ear was the result of a bullet or shrapnel. The FBI [later confirmed](https://www.npr.org/2024/07/27/nx-s1-5053981/fbi-trump-bullet-assassination) it was a bullet. "Where's the shrapnel coming from? Is it coming from — is it coming from heaven? I don't think so," Trump said in the NBC interview. "So we need somebody to straighten — you know, I have a lot of respect for the FBI, but the FBI's respect has gone way down over the last number of years." ### Trump hired Wray after firing Comey It's the second time an FBI leader has left in connection to the Trump administration before the director's 10-year-term had expired. In 2017, Trump's Justice Department leaders dismissed James Comey and Trump replaced him with Wray, a longtime conservative and member of the Federalist Society. After Trump's election to a second term in the White House, Wray had initially signaled he intended to remain on the job. "The director is continuing to oversee the day to day operations of the FBI and is actively planning with his team to lead the FBI into next year and beyond," an FBI official said in November after the election. The FBI employs more than 35,000 people who work to investigate federal crimes, prevent terrorist attacks and analyze intelligence materials. Its leader is the only political appointee at the FBI. Congress tried to insulate the agency from political winds by giving the FBI director 10 years in office, to extend beyond the tenure of any one president. The FBI Agents Association, which advocates for the more than 14,000 FBI special agents, called for a meeting with Trump's team about its priorities. "Our country faces a barrage of national security and criminal threats, making a stable transition of leadership in the Bureau essential to the safety of the American public," Natalie Bara, president of the association, said in a statement. "It is important that the next director uphold the central role of the rank-and-file Special Agents in fulfilling this mission." Some of Trump's conservative advisers have suggested trying to overhaul the FBI to make its director accountable to more junior officials inside the Justice Department with more political control. The FBI's headquarters building continues to bear the name of J. Edgar Hoover, its longest-serving leader, whose tenure is now remembered for overreach and personal vendettas. He ended up leading the FBI for 48 years, which [helped prompt](https://www.npr.org/2024/12/03/nx-s1-5213626/what-trumps-pick-of-kash-patel-to-lead-the-fbi-could-mean-for-the-bureau) the 10-year limit on tenures for FBI directors.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray has said he will resign before President-elect Donald Trump, who has indicated he would fire him, takes office next month. Wray announced at an internal FBI meeting on Wednesday that he had decided to step aside after weeks of consideration. Trump has already nominated Kash Patel, who has called for "dramatically" limiting the FBI's authority, to lead the law-enforcement agency. Wray, whom Trump nominated in 2017 to a 10-year term, has faced criticism during his tenure from Republicans due to the FBI's investigations into the former president after he left office. Speaking at the FBI meeting on Wednesday, Wray said: "I've decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down." "In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work," Wray added. He received a standing ovation after his remarks, with some in the audience crying, an unnamed official told the Associated Press. Trump appointed Wray to lead the FBI after [firing his predecessor James Comey](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39866170) following the FBI's investigations into [alleged contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38966846). When appointing him, Trump said Wray - a Yale Law School graduate - was a man of "impeccable credentials". But in recent years, Wray has fallen out of favour with the president-elect after the FBI assisted with a federal probe into Trump's handling of classified documents, [a case that has since been dropped](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gvd7kxxj5o). Trump said Wray's resignation was "a great day for America". "It will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice," he said on Truth Social. "We will now restore the rule of law for all Americans." Following his election to a second term, Trump said his pick for FBI director would be Patel - a former aide who has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming Republican president. On Wednesday, Patel said he was "looking forward to a smooth transition and I'll be ready to go on day one". "Senators have been wonderful and I look forward to earning their trust and confidence through the advice and consent process, and restoring law and order and integrity to the FBI," he said. Patel requires approval by the Senate before he can be appointed. In the meantime, FBI deputy director Paul Abbate, a veteran FBI agent, will run the bureau after Wray's departure, the BBC's US partner CBS News reported. Patel has been a fierce critic of the FBI. In his memoir, Government Gangsters, Patel called for an eradication of "government tyranny" within the FBI by firing "the top ranks". Patel's critics have expressed doubts that he is qualified to lead one of the world's top law enforcement agencies. However, some Republican lawmakers have welcomed his nomination. "Reform is badly needed at FBI," Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa wrote on X following news of Wray's resignation, adding that the American people deserve transparency and accountability. Wray has strongly denied he allowed a Democratic partisan agenda to run amok as FBI director, telling lawmakers a year ago at a House of Representatives hearing that he had been a lifelong Republican. "The idea that I am biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background," he said. US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat, reacted to Wray's resignation by thanking him for his service and saying that the FBI "will soon embark on a perilous new era with serious questions about its future." Wray was also praised by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who said in a statement that he had "served our country honourably and with integrity for decades, including for seven years as Director of the FBI under presidents of both parties." The FBIAA, the association representing the bureau's agents, said that Wray led them "through challenging times with a steady focus on doing the work that keeps our country safe." FBI directors are appointed for 10-year terms - a length chosen to outlast political turnovers in the White House every four years, and therefore the appearance of bias. Wray's term was not due to expire until 2027. Trump would not have been able to appoint Patel, his pick, without firing Wray or him resigning voluntarily.

President Trump fired 17 inspectors general, the internal watchdogs who monitor federal agencies, on Friday night, capping a week of dramatic shake-ups of the federal bureaucracy focused on loyalty to the president, three people with knowledge of the matter said. The sweeping move did not affect Michael E. Horowitz, the inspector general for the Justice Department, according to one of the people with knowledge of the matter. But inspectors general at several major agencies were believed to have been fired. The Washington Post [reported the firings](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/24/trump-fire-inspectors-general-federal-agencies/) earlier. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. The firings threatened to upend the traditional independence of the internal watchdogs, and critics of Mr. Trump reacted with alarm. “Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse and preventing misconduct,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.” People involved in the Trump transition had signaled such a shake-up was likely. And it is in keeping with an effort that Mr. Trump began in early 2020, when he dismissed five inspectors general from their roles. At the time, Mr. Trump was dealing with a raging coronavirus pandemic across the country, but he also was seeking to reshape the government to remove people he saw as trying to damage him. That included Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community, who dealt with the anonymous whistle-blower complaint that led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment by the House. Democrats accused Mr. Trump of trying to gut the independent offices. Mr. Horowitz delivered to the Justice Department in late 2019 a report about the F.B.I. investigation of potential links between his campaign and Russians that began in 2016, called Crossfire Hurricane. Mr. Horowitz found that the F.B.I. had a valid basis for opening the investigation, but he was critical of the application for a warrant to secretly monitor a Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. He also said the F.B.I. director at the time the investigation was opened, James B. Comey, had violated the department’s policy with secret memos about his interactions with Mr. Trump that later became public. The Justice Department declined to prosecute Mr. Comey, a decision that infuriated Mr. Trump.

 _We're following the_ [_confirmation hearings_](https://www.npr.org/2024/11/12/g-s1-33773/trump-cabinet-advisers-administration) _for the incoming Trump administration. See_ [_our full politics coverage_](https://www.npr.org/sections/politics/)_, and follow NPR's_ [Trump's Terms _podcast_](https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510374/trumps-terms) _or_ [_sign up for our Politics newsletter_](https://www.npr.org/newsletter/politics) _to stay up to date._ **Who:** Kash Patel Patel is a former public defender, federal prosecutor and veteran of the first Trump administration. He's also a fierce critic of the Justice Department and the FBI. **Nominated for:** director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, part of the Justice Department **What this role does:** The director oversees the FBI, which is the United States' premier law enforcement agency, and the more than 35,000 people who work there. The FBI investigates federal crimes, everything from terrorism and violent crime to civil rights and public corruption. _Watch Patel's Senate confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, set to begin Thursday at 9:30 a.m. ET:_ In less than a decade, Kash Patel has risen from a largely unknown congressional aide to become a MAGA-world fixture. He has held senior national security jobs, sold self-branded merchandise online and written a children's book called _The Plot Against the King_, featuring a wizard named Kash and a king named Donald. Patel is now President Trump's pick to lead the FBI, the country's premier law enforcement agency, which is responsible for everything from catching terrorists and spies to investigating cyberattacks and public corruption. On Thursday, Patel is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Democrats are expected to press him about his qualifications to lead the bureau and whether he can — or even wants to — maintain the FBI's traditional independence from the White House. Those questions are fueled by Patel's fierce loyalty to Trump but also by the long list of Patel's own past statements about rooting out the "deep state" and going after Trump's perceived enemies, including at the FBI, at the Justice Department and in the media. Those comments also dovetail with Trump's own statements during the presidential campaign about seeking vengeance against his opponents. Republicans, who hold the majority in the Senate, have largely been supportive of Patel's nomination, and he can win confirmation with only GOP support while still losing three Republican votes. The president and his supporters accuse the FBI and the Justice Department of being weaponized in recent years against conservatives, and they view Patel as someone who will put the FBI on the correct course. The Biden Justice Department rejected those allegations, noting that prosecutors brought cases against President Biden's own son as well as powerful Democratic members of Congress. ### Patel's rise The FBI director's job comes with a 10-year term, although neither of Patel's immediate predecessors served that full term. Trump fired James Comey in 2017 and replaced him with Christopher Wray. After Trump's 2024 election win, he made clear that Wray would not be allowed to stay and nominated Patel to replace him. Wray left before Trump's inauguration. Patel's résumé is not typical for an FBI director. Wray, for example, had run the Criminal Division at the Justice Department, while Comey had previously served as U.S. attorney in Manhattan and as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job in the department. Patel, in contrast, worked as a public defender in Florida before working as a prosecutor in the Justice Department's National Security Division for a few years. In 2017, he moved to the House Intelligence Committee, where he was a top aide to the top Republican on the panel, Rep. Devin Nunes of California. It was here that Patel gained attention for helping investigate the investigators who were probing possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. His efforts raised questions about failings in the FBI's work on the probe, and it made Patel a hero among Trump supporters. It also helped him land a job on Trump's National Security Council and later as a top aide to the director of national intelligence and to the secretary of defense. Toward the end of the first Trump administration, the president tried to install Patel in top positions at the CIA and the FBI but backed down in the face of opposition from senior leaders at the Justice Department, Congress and elsewhere. After Trump's 2020 election loss, Patel became a frequent guest on right-wing podcasts. It is in those podcast episodes that Patel has made many of his controversial statements. He has railed against what he calls the deep state, which he views as people in senior national security roles who he claims have weaponized the justice system and intelligence agencies and pose a threat to democracy. In one appearance on [Shawn Ryan's podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjWCnh42Sc4), Patel vowed to shut down the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., "on Day 1 and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state." "And I'd take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals," he added. "Go be cops. You're cops— go be cops. Go chase down murderers and rapists and drug dealers and violent offenders." He also wrote a book called _Government Gangsters_ that includes a list of deep state actors whom Patel's critics have described as an enemies list. All of this sets up what could be a tense confirmation hearing. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut and a Senate Judiciary Committee member, called Patel "unqualified and unprepared" to lead the FBI. "Anybody who has an enemies list that would be targets for retribution, anyone who wants to shut down the FBI here in Washington, anyone who wants to purge an agency that has to investigate impartially and objectively, is unfit for this job," Blumenthal said. Blumenthal said he met with Patel ahead of the hearing and pressed him on his statements about using the FBI as a political weapon. He said Patel responded with "totally unpersuasive assurances." "What he offered in these vague assurances — was 'Oh, I would never do anything like that' — but he has said he would do exactly that, so he's going to have to explain himself," Blumenthal said. Republicans, meanwhile, appear to have largely swung behind Patel's nomination. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has met with Patel as well to discuss his potential confirmation, acknowledged that for some people, some of Patel's past statements could be controversial. "Obviously, Kash was engaging in a lot of political rhetoric, and I think he understands the difference between that and actually doing the job at the DOJ and the FBI," Cornyn said. "And I think the FBI needs a course correction, and he's certainly capable of doing that."

Kash Patel, President Trump’s pick to run the F.B.I., repeatedly evaded the question of whether he would investigate officials on a published list of his perceived enemies during his confirmation hearing on Thursday, even as he sought to allay fears about his fitness to serve and his fealty to President Trump. In trying to distance himself from far-right associates and his own public statements, Mr. Patel, a cocky and confrontational Trump loyalist, went so far as to suggest he disagreed with Mr. Trump’s decision to pardon Jan. 6 rioters who attacked law enforcement officials. It was a rare divergence from a president who selected him to run the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency. Asked if he agreed with Mr. Trump’s broad grant of clemency on the day he was inaugurated, Mr. Patel, a former congressional staff member and national security aide, said he had “repeatedly, often publicly and privately, said there can never be a tolerance for violence against law enforcement.” The nomination of Mr. Patel, 44, has upended the post-Watergate tradition of picking nonpartisan F.B.I. directors with extensive law enforcement experience. If confirmed, Mr. Patel could provide Mr. Trump with a direct line into the bureau, possibly eliminating guardrails meant to insulate it from White House interference. While the hearing addressed a range of issues stemming from Mr. Patel’s actions and statements, Democrats time and again accused Mr. Patel of prioritizing his allegiance to Mr. Trump over adherence to the rule of law, a charge the nominee forcefully denied. When Senator Mazie K. Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, asked if he planned to investigate the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey and others he has attacked publicly, Mr. Patel said he would abide by the law and the Constitution and would scrutinize only those he deemed likely to have committed crimes. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F01%2F30%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fkash-patel-confirmation-hearing.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F01%2F30%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fkash-patel-confirmation-hearing.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F01%2F30%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fkash-patel-confirmation-hearing.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F01%2F30%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fkash-patel-confirmation-hearing.html).

_This story was originally published in_ [_The Highlight_](https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/394440/highlight-january-2025)_, Vox’s member-exclusive magazine. To get early access to member-exclusive stories every month,_ [_join the Vox Membership program today_](https://www.vox.com/support-now?itm_campaign=article-header-Q42024&itm_medium=site&itm_source=in-article)_._ Donald Trump’s return to the presidency will mark an end to eight years of his critics’ hopes that he could be taken down through the legal process. The [Russia investigation](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/15/23588121/trump-russia-cjr-jeff-gerth-russiagate), [four criminal prosecutions](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump/383152/donald-trump-criminal-indictments-supreme-court-reelected), and a [conviction at trial](https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0) on 34 felony counts ultimately did not dissuade voters from handing Trump another term in November. So what did all those investigations and prosecutions of the president-elect amount to? Some would argue that the answer is: nothing. Because voters ultimately shrugged off Trump’s legal woes, he won the election. This [will let him](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump/383152/donald-trump-criminal-indictments-supreme-court-reelected) end the two federal prosecutions of him and avoid consequences for the two state ones. Meaning: He’ll get off [scot-free](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/04/who-is-scott-free-search-meaning-after-trumps-misuse-medieval-idiom/). The outcome may even be worse than that. For years, many in the country’s liberal and centrist elite argued that these investigations were righteous attempts to hold a corrupt figure accountable for his rampant lawbreaking. They argued that Trump posed an imminent threat to democracy and that the best way to defend the rule of law was by thoroughly investigating and prosecuting him. And yet the most salient legacy of the Trump cases may be that they’ve [helped trap](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-demise-and-afterlife-of-donald-trumps-criminal-cases) the country in a destructive tit-for-tat spiral of politicized lawfare, or legal warfare. Trump now will take office far more embittered with the Department of Justice that indicted him — and perhaps more determined to [weaponize](https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21358181/trump-barr-justice-department-second-term-agenda) that department against his opponents — than ever before. The investigations did not make Trump a corrupt person: He [was pledging](https://www.wsj.com/video/trump-appoint-a-special-prosecutor-to-investigate-clinton/E84A89EF-4FFC-401E-B4F1-5A5B09E0615C?mod=article_inline) to send the DOJ after his political rivals before he was even elected in 2016. But his personal peril may have focused his resentment, so that he’ll be more hell-bent on making sure the department serves his whims. Perhaps more consequentially, he’ll now have much [more cover](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/us/politics/kash-patel-republicans-fbi.html) from the GOP. Republicans at all levels of the party have increasingly accepted Trump’s argument that he was being unfairly persecuted by Democrats and a politicized “deep state.” They’ve become polarized and radicalized against federal law enforcement institutions — and perhaps more likely to confirm nominees who would have [seemed unthinkably extreme](https://www.vox.com/politics/389481/kash-patel-trump-fbi-steve-bannon-podcast) a few years ago. It is far from clear that investigators could have followed some alternate path that would have avoided this outcome completely. A confrontation between Trump and the rule of law was likely inevitable as soon as he was first elected — he is who he is. Investigators were regularly faced with the no-win choice between ignoring potential Trumpian wrongdoing, and thoroughly investigating in a way sure to invite attacks and reprisals. Letting real malfeasance, like Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election, go unpunished would have been galling. But, as the saying goes, if you come at the king, [you best not miss](https://x.com/HBO/status/395034838534983680?lang=en). They missed — and now the country will reap the consequences. Many Democrats, and at least some among the country’s nonpartisan elite [establishment](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/coalition-all-democratic-forces-part-i-political-focus-whats-truly-important), conceived of the threat to democracy in the past eight years this way: Donald Trump is an unethical, corrupt, and dangerous figure — possibly even a budding dictator — who poses grave threats to democracy, the rule of law, and the United States of America. Therefore, the way to save the country was to stop Trump, either at the ballot box or by disqualifying him, either legally or in the eyes of the public. He could be expelled from politics through investigations, impeachment, prosecutions, [removal from the ballot,](https://www.vox.com/politics/23880607/trump-14th-amendment-lawsuits-federalist-society) or even imprisonment. Of course, practically no one directly involved in the many investigations of Trump would publicly say their true motivation was to stop him from winning (one potential exception came in an FBI agent’s [text](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/14/fbi-agents-text-reportedly-disclosed-by-justice-watchdog-well-stop-trump-from-becoming-president.html) to his affair partner). Many defenders of the investigations argue that they were simply an attempt to make sure Trump was not _above_ the law, and that they wanted to prevent an obviously lawless person from endangering the country. This way of thinking provides helpful moral clarity, but has inherent tensions. For instance: Are you truly standing up for democracy if, in effect, you’re trying to unseat the presidential election winner, or to prevent him from running again? Is there ever a risk that the line could be crossed — so that the threat to democracy would be coming from inside the house? In a 2023 paper, [Rachel Kleinfeld](https://carnegieendowment.org/people/rachel-kleinfeld?lang=en), a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, pointed out the irony that many efforts to “[save democracy](https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/09/polarization-democracy-and-political-violence-in-the-united-states-what-the-research-says?lang=en)” tend to loudly proclaim that their political opponents pose an existential threat to democracy. There are, Kleinfeld argued, a few problems with this. First off, partisans tend to “overestimate the willingness of the other side to break democratic norms.” Second, this overestimation “makes them more likely to support or even take antidemocratic practices for their side.” And third, these efforts can end up deepening polarization and inviting reprisals, which puts democracy in more danger. Kleinfeld’s paper brings to mind international relations models of how unwanted wars can start: a two-sided process involving a spiral of escalations, as well as perhaps some misperception and miscalculation. Trump’s critics generally have a one-sided view of the threat to democracy: believing it comes entirely from Trump and the GOP, that Democrats and the Trump cases were righteous attempts to enforce the rule of law, rein in abuses of power, or save the country from a possible tyrant. A two-sided view of the threat to democracy in the Trump era would look different. It’s [time for some game theory](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-time-for-some-game-theory): * Back in 2016 and early 2017, investigators inclined to be suspicious of Trump thought it was plausible he was being blackmailed or bribed by Vladimir Putin — or that he was involved in the Russian government’s plot to hack and leak Democrats’ emails — and that he posed a serious and imminent threat to American national security. * Trump was outraged by this and viewed it as a politicized plot against him and struck back, including by firing FBI Director James Comey, more intensely meddling in the Justice Department, and turning Republicans against the investigation * Democrats and other Trump critics, outraged he seemed to be getting off the hook, intensified investigations against him elsewhere, vowing to bring him to justice if Democrats regained power * Trump, [fearing prosecution](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/donald-trump-post-white-house-prosecutions?srsltid=AfmBOoqLLWs4JBm_AgzGmnYfnsPHXTkXXlNWfle6gmNqkhk_8q0mDHbb) if he left office, stunningly escalated by trying to overturn Biden’s victory and stay in power. That is, his own fear of legal jeopardy may have made him more likely to abuse power. * The attempt to steal the election cemented Democrats’ belief that Trump is a uniquely dangerous threat, and when he did leave office, they intensified efforts to prosecute him on both that and other matters. * The prosecutions cemented Trump and his supporters’ belief that the deep state will stop at nothing to get him, and they vowed to dismantle the FBI and DOJ if he returned to power. * Since Trump has won, some Democrats, fearing political targeting by his Justice Department, have [called on](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/us/politics/biden-trump-pardons.html) Biden to issue broad preemptive pardons to Trump’s enemies — something that, if carried out, would only cement the right’s belief of a corrupt conspiracy to cover up Democratic wrongdoing. I think both of these views are worth grappling with. My own view is somewhat of a mix of the two. Our political system has gotten stuck in a harmful cycle of tit-for-tat lawfare and that certain Trump investigators have at times overreached. However, I also believe the threat to democracy comes primarily from Trump himself and would not be solved by Trump’s opponents deciding to stand down — to unilaterally disarm, as some might say. To show how difficult it is to avoid this downward spiral, it’s worth going through the various Trump investigations and assessing if there’s anywhere they went wrong, or anything they should have done differently. The cycle started with the Russia investigation. But that investigation existed because Russian intelligence officers really did illegally hack Democrats’ emails and have them leaked during the 2016 campaign. Then, the FBI really did [get a tip](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/us/politics/how-fbi-russia-investigation-began-george-papadopoulos.html) that a Trump campaign adviser was bragging about having inside knowledge about that hack. And various Trump advisers [really were](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/15/23588121/trump-russia-cjr-jeff-gerth-russiagate#:~:text=many%20shenanigans%20were%20indeed%20afoot.) making shady-looking Russian contacts during the campaign. Prosecutors did not find, in the end, any conspiracy between Trump’s team and Russia about the email hacks. But should they not have even looked? And when Trump [fired Comey](https://apnews.com/united-states-government-4ff1ecb621884a728b25e62661257ef0), citing a comically false justification, should everyone have just pretended there was nothing unusual about that? Investigators could have avoided [various](https://www.vox.com/2018/7/12/17565834/strzok-hearing-trump-russia-mueller) [missteps](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/us/politics/carter-page-fbi-surveillance.html) and [controversies](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html) that eventually became public and spurred intense criticism from the right. But I don’t actually believe there was a way to do a halfway rigorous Russia investigation without making Trump furiously want to shut it down. The problem was that he did not believe he should be investigated at all. That’s a problem because Trump and the people around him did so many things prosecutors thought were worth investigating. Beyond the Russia claims, there were the hush money payments to [Stormy Daniels](https://www.vox.com/2018/3/24/17151786/stormy-daniels-explained) and [others](https://www.vox.com/2018/4/12/17230498/donald-trump-national-enquirer-child-30000-doorman-joe-mika-payoff-hush-money-scandal-housekeeper) before the 2016 election, intelligence claiming that the Egyptian government [sent](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/08/02/trump-campaign-egypt-investigation/) $10 million to Trump’s campaign that same year, and [reports of potential wrongdoing](https://www.vox.com/2018/12/13/18139886/trump-inaugural-committee-inauguration-investigation-sdny) regarding Trump’s inauguration committee. (Federal prosecutors eventually abandoned all three probes without charging Trump.) The idea that Trump mainly abuses power if he feels legal jeopardy is also questionable — indeed, the opposite could be true. I’ve always found it noteworthy that shortly after the Mueller investigation wrapped up and Trump’s legal jeopardy seemingly evaporated, he [hatched his idea](https://www.npr.org/2019/11/07/775456663/who-was-on-the-trump-ukraine-call) to try and hold back aid from Ukraine unless President Volodymyr Zelenskyy provided him with dirt on the Bidens — the idea that earned him his first impeachment. So would freedom from investigations have incentivized Trump to behave better, or would it just have encouraged him to try to get away with more corrupt stuff? Now, some reports did claim Trump’s fear of prosecution was weighing on him before the 2020 election — the [New York Times reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/us/politics/trump-campaign.html#click=https://t.co/Zo6Qb23Jl2) Trump was concerned about “existing investigations in New York” as well as “the potential for new federal probes.” But it’s hardly clear that this was the decisive factor spurring him to try and steal the election: He may have done it anyway. If Trump did try to steal the 2020 election in part due to fears of being prosecuted if he lost, those fears ended up being self-fulfilling — three of the four prosecutions he eventually faced were about actions he took after Election Day 2020. These are federal and Georgia state charges over his election-stealing effort, as well as federal charges over his refusal to return classified documents after leaving office. (I’ll address the fourth, the New York prosecution, further down.) Regarding the classified documents strewn around-Mar-a-Lago: Trump [pretty clearly seems to have violated the law](https://www.vox.com/2023/6/9/23755679/indictment-unsealed-trump-charges-explained-classified-documents). Some may argue that prosecutors should have continued negotiations with him over which documents he should give back rather than making the dramatic, headline-grabbing move of [searching Mar-a-Lago](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/9/23297734/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-fbi-raid). Perhaps the optics of other politicians like Biden having some classified documents [stashed away](https://apnews.com/article/biden-classified-documents-age-trump-2024-4791639cc06cc0affee55aba80c7e6b3) were problematic in the court of public opinion. Ultimately, a [Trump-appointed Florida judge](https://www.vox.com/2023/6/13/23757893/aileen-cannon-donald-trump-jack-smith-indictment-mar-a-lago-maga) bottled up the prosecution and it amounted to nothing. Trump’s election-stealing attempt posed a different challenge to investigators: however appalling his conduct, there was [no initial consensus](https://www.vox.com/politics/23817168/is-it-illegal-to-try-to-steal-a-presidential-election) that it actually was illegal. A situation like Trump’s attempt to stay in office had never occurred in US history and there was no clear precedent with which to ground this case. Accordingly, Biden’s DOJ was hesitant to go after Trump for it. This reluctance lasted for about Biden’s first year in office, and [outside criticism built](https://www.vox.com/2021/7/29/22594393/merrick-garland-trump-prosecutions-justice-department) over allegedly letting Trump off the hook. Word even leaked out that Biden himself [was saying in private](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/us/politics/merrick-garland-biden-trump.html) that he thought Trump should be prosecuted. (“I have never once — not one single time — suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do, relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge,” Biden [later said publicly](https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-indictment-2024-classified-documents-46432cb6123a5d6ced4c4de6bbfa6e6c).) Whether in response to the criticism or not, Biden’s DOJ came to embrace a legal theory in which Trump’s actions amounted to criminal conspiracy. This idea initially hinged on the idea that one part of the scheme — lists of “fake electors” — amounted to forgery of documents, though it broadened to other aspects of Trump’s conduct in special counsel [Jack Smith’s eventual indictment](https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/8/1/23800704/trump-indicted-criminal-charges-jack-smith-jan-6-insurrection). But as [I wrote at the time](https://www.vox.com/politics/23817168/is-it-illegal-to-try-to-steal-a-presidential-election), the indictment was not so much clear proof that Trump’s conduct _was_ indisputably criminal; it was effectively an attempt to set a new precedent that conduct like his _should be_ considered criminal. This sounded appropriate to me — politicians shouldn’t try to steal elections! But many on the right were less persuaded by this legal creativity. The skeptics included the [six Republican appointees](https://www.vox.com/scotus/358292/supreme-court-trump-immunity-dictatorship) on the Supreme Court, who issued a ruling that effectively prevented the federal election case against Trump from happening this year. (Meanwhile, a case brought in Georgia by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis used the legal theory that Trump’s attempt to steal the election was [racketeering](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-indicted-georgia-racketeering-rcna74912), but it got bogged down for separate reasons). And then there is New York — where the idea that investigators were high-mindedly trying to defend the rule of law regardless of politics is least persuasive. There, Democrats elected to top law enforcement positions spent years digging into Trump’s history and his company to search for charges that might stick to him. “We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well,” state Attorney General-elect Letitia James [vowed](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/incoming-new-york-attorney-general-plans-wide-ranging-investigations-trump-n946706) in December 2018. James’s office worked with Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who [in 2019 opened](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/nyregion/trump-cohen-stormy-daniels-vance.html) a criminal probe about the Stormy Daniels hush money, after federal prosecutors indicated they were no longer pursuing the case. Eventually, Vance put that aside in favor of probing the Trump Organization’s [real estate valuation](https://apnews.com/article/trump-westchester-estate-property-value-investigation-d6a128161e52d1cea94d4ffb54d14ef0) practices. He attempted to “flip” the company’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg against Trump by [charging him](https://www.vox.com/22555751/allen-weisselberg-indictment-trump-grand-larceny) with tax fraud. (Weisselberg eventually pleaded guilty and [served a brief jail sentence](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-ally-allen-weisselberg-released-jail-rcna162816) but never provided bombshell cooperation implicating Trump.) When Alvin Bragg succeeded Vance as district attorney in 2022, he wasn’t particularly impressed with the real estate valuation case and put a hold on it. This spurred the two top prosecutors on the case to [resign in protest](https://www.vox.com/2022/2/23/22947946/trump-prosecutors-new-york-bragg), which brought intense public criticism of Bragg for purportedly letting Trump off the hook. Whether because of the criticism or not, Bragg’s team ended up [returning to](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/nyregion/alvin-bragg-trump-investigation.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur) the matter of the hush money payments to Daniels. The payments had been made by Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen, and Trump later repaid Cohen for them — but, in internal company documents, the Trump Organization called these repayments legal expenses. Bragg’s indictment alleged that this amounted to felony falsification of business records. As I [wrote at the time](https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/1/23664751/trump-indictment-alvin-bragg-stormy-daniels), the Manhattan DA’s case always looked quite a bit to me like an attempt to “get Trump” for crimes to be determined later. It was a fishing expedition that lasted years, the charges were somewhat obscure and technical, outside analysis [were skeptical](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/05/alvin-bragg-case-against-trump-00090602) of its legal theories, investigators were internally divided on the case’s strength, and those in charge of it had pretty obvious political motives (needing to win Democratic primaries in heavily Democratic territory). But the New York charges did not succeed in sinking Trump; if they had any impact at all, it was the opposite. Before the indictment, Trump led his closest GOP primary rival, Ron DeSantis, by about 15 points [in the polls](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/republican-primary/2024/national) — but just one week afterward, Trump’s lead skyrocketed to nearly 30 points as Republicans rallied around him. (His eventual conviction didn’t budge general election polls; ultimately, the public looked at this case, and yawned.) When I’ve [warned](https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21358181/trump-barr-justice-department-second-term-agenda) about the dangers that Trump will weaponize law enforcement against his political enemies, a common response from his supporters is: That’s already happened, to Trump, from Democrats. With the Russia probe, the election cases, and the classified documents case, I think it’s more complicated than that. But the New York case is the one where Trump’s argument that he was the victim of politicized lawfare is strongest. Even if one accepts the premise that we’ve gotten trapped in a cycle of politicized lawfare, it’s much harder to figure out how we escape it. Kleinfeld, the democracy researcher, [reviewed existing research](https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/09/polarization-democracy-and-political-violence-in-the-united-states-what-the-research-says?lang=en) about what makes people more or less likely to support antidemocratic ideas. “The only interventions that currently appear to have a valuable effect on antidemocratic attitudes,” she wrote, “focus on correcting the particular misbeliefs about the other side’s willingness to break democratic norms.” That is: If you’re less likely to believe the _other_ side presents a lawless threat to democracy, you’re less likely to embrace lawless practices from your own side. But what if the other side does pose a threat? Many of the Trump investigations and prosecutions were justified — either implicitly or explicitly — with the idea that Trump was a corrupt and dangerous figure posing grave threats to democracy and the rule of law. There were always good reasons to worry about this. On the debate stage in October 2016, Trump [told Hillary Clinton](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/10-times-trump-called-hillary-clinton-democrats-investigated/story?id=51138506) he’d appoint a special prosecutor to go after her. One week after being sworn in as president, Trump [told](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html) FBI Director Comey that he wanted “loyalty.” Not every fear about Trump was vindicated. Trump was not a deep-cover Russian agent. He did not actually manage to lock up his critics during his first term. Various [guardrails of democracy](https://www.vox.com/politics/24159069/trump-guardrails-authoritarian-democracy-second-term) constrained his worst impulses. Elections proceeded as scheduled. But many fears about the threat he posed to democracy and the rule of law were proven right. Foremost among those was his attempt to steal the 2020 election, of course. But at other times in his first term, he repeatedly attempted to [send the Justice Department](https://www.justsecurity.org/98703/chronology-trump-justice-department/) after people he didn’t like. He [tried to enlist the DOJ](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-justice-department-election.html) to help him steal the election. He has always [wanted to weaponize](https://www.vox.com/2020/8/28/21358181/trump-barr-justice-department-second-term-agenda) the legal process against his (real or perceived) enemies. Just last month Trump [filed a lawsuit](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/us/politics/trump-sues-des-moines-register.html) over a poll he didn’t like. So while mistakes were made in the Trump investigations, it’s hard for me to see why a more lenient approach from investigators, or a less confrontational approach from Democrats, would have alleviated Trump’s threat entirely. Still, the real damage that eight years of investigations has wrought is the polarization that has occurred — as both Republican voters and elites have become increasingly polarized against the DOJ and the FBI, and increasingly willing to empower Trump to tear those agencies down. And soon, we’ll find out just how justified those darkest fears about Trump’s intentions really are. You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country. Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change. We rely on readers like you — join us.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief

 The Republican-led Senate voted Thursday to confirm [Kash Patel](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5280177/kash-patel-is-asked-to-explain-incendiary-statements-in-fbi-head-confirmation-hearing) as the new FBI director despite questions about whether he has the qualifications and the temperament to lead the nation's most powerful law enforcement agency. Patel, a close ally of President Trump and a fierce critic of the FBI, was confirmed by a 51-49 vote, with Republican Sens. [Susan Collins](https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senator-collins-statement-on-nomination-of-kash-patel-to-serve-as-fbi-director) and Lisa Murkowski joining all Democrats in opposing him. It caps a remarkable rise for Patel, who has worked as a public defender, federal prosecutor and congressional aide before serving as a national security official in President Trump's first term. He later emerged as a fixture in MAGA world, a right-wing podcast regular and a Trump loyalist. Republicans welcomed his confirmation. They argue that the FBI has unfairly targeted conservatives in recent years, and they see Patel as someone who will fix that purported problem. "Kash is the right man to clean up the FBI to restore Americans' confidence and trust that the FBI is not a political organization, it is a law enforcement organization," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a [post on X](https://x.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1892665007466545620). Republicans pushed Patel's nomination over the line in the face of fierce opposition from Democrats, who voiced concerns about Patel's fitness for the job and his ability—or even desire—to maintain the FBI's traditional independence the White House. Concerns about Patel's ability to lead the FBI were reflected in the narrow margin of his confirmation vote. His three immediate predecessors—Christopher Wray, James Comey and Robert Mueller—all received at least 92 votes. ### Democrats warn of "red flags" On Thursday morning, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee gathered in front of FBI headquarters to speak out against Patel. "Mr. Patel will be a political and national security disaster, if confirmed," said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the panel's top Democrat. "I'm convinced he has neither the experience, the judgment nor the temperament to lead the FBI," Durbin added. "My Senate Republican colleagues are willfully ignoring myriad red flags about Mr. Patel, especially his recurring instinct to threaten retribution against his perceived enemies. This is an extremely dangerous flaw for someone who seeks to lead the nation's most powerful domestic investigative agency for the next 10 years." Neither of Patel's immediate predecessors served out the job's full 10-year term. Trump fired then-director James Comey in 2017, and handpicked Christopher Wray to replace him. After Trump's election win last November, he tapped Patel to lead the FBI, effectively [pushing Wray](https://www.npr.org/2024/12/12/nx-s1-5226123/fbi-director-wray-says-hell-step-down-when-the-biden-administration-ends-in-january) out of the job. Unlike those two men, Patel has no experience as a senior law enforcement official. That has fueled questions about his qualifications to lead the FBI. But the pushback to his nomination has centered more around his loyalty to Trump and his past statements about rooting out what he calls the "deep state" and going after his and Trump's perceived political enemies, including at the FBI. In one podcast appearance, Patel vowed to shut down FBI headquarters on Day 1 and reopen it as a "museum of the deep state." At [his confirmation hearing](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5278626/trump-cabinet-picks-kash-patel-confirmation-hearing), Patel sought to deflect questions about his past comments, telling lawmakers "any accusations leveled against me that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution are grotesquely unfair." Patel takes over at the FBI at a tumultuous time for the bureau. In the past few weeks, the new leadership at the Justice Department has pushed out at least eight senior FBI officials and obtained a list of all FBI personnel involved in investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol—a probe the Trump administration has criticized. That has touched off fears at the bureau of possible mass firings for retaliatory reasons. The FBI Agents Association, which represents the majority of agents at the bureau, sued to prevent making public the names of FBI employees provided to the department. On Thursday, the association's president, Natalie Bara, congratulated Patel on his confirmation. "We look forward to partnering with him as he leads the Bureau forward in our shared mission to keep America safe," Bara said in a statement. "As the new leadership team considers and implements reform measures, the FBIAA stands ready to serve as a valuable resource, ensuring that Special Agents can continue safeguarding the American people from emerging threats while upholding the Constitution."

President Donald Trump vowed to fight government abuse and introduce more transparency, a stance that might align him with a little-known agency charged with watching over the U.S.’s powerful spying programs. Lately it’s investigated and critiqued the intelligence community’s secret terrorist [watchlist](https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/OversightReport/b2f9ecff-99fc-48f9-a559-b486391b0e0a/PCLOB%20Terrorist%20Watchlist%20Report%20Unclassified.pdf), its fight against domestic [extremism](https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/OversightReport/f1792f65-d0cd-489c-b8e1-8bfe4020da93/PCLOB%20Assessment%20and%20Recommendations%201.17.25.pdf), and its warrantless searching of Americans’ emails. The agency, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, is also central to a hard-won agreement that allows U.S. companies like Meta and X to handle Europeans’ data. None of that stopped Trump from firing the board’s three Democratic members on his second day in office, effectively hobbling one of the few independent watchdogs over the world’s most powerful spying apparatus. On Monday two of those members fired back in a lawsuit, calling the move illegal and asking a court to reinstate them. “The President’s actions strike at the heart of the separation of powers,” Travis LeBlanc and Ed Felten, the former members, said in their [suit](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277733/gov.uscourts.dcd.277733.1.0.pdf), which was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Not only do \[Trump’s\] removals eradicate a vital check on the infringement of ordinary Americans’ civil liberties, they also hobble an agency that Congress created to assist it with oversight of the executive branch.”  Travis LeBlanc, an attorney nominated by President Trump to the PCLOB, was sworn in by Vice President Harris. He and Ed Felten sued Trump on Monday \[Screenshot: The Biden White House\] LeBlanc and Felten were both nominated by Trump during his first term, and each had at least another year to serve. They were fired along with [Sharon Bradford Franklin](https://documents.pclob.gov/prod/Documents/EventsAndPress/aa864632-fb7e-4413-b8fa-e2d58d1663de/PRESS%20RELEASE%20-%20PCLOB%20Franklin%20Williams%20Sworn-In%202022.02.28.pdf), who was nominated by President Joe Biden to be the board’s full-time chairwoman in 2021, and who was expected to step down anyway when her term ended on January 29. The White House did not ask the board’s only Republican member, Beth Williams, to resign; a fifth seat is currently vacant. Without a quorum of three members, the board’s staff cannot start new reports—the bulk of the agency’s work—or complete existing ones. The move went largely unnoticed amid a barrage of firings, but raised alarms among civil liberties advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, especially given the prospect of the White House pursuing its political opponents. New FBI director Kash Patel, who has sought to downplay [an enemies list](https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/30/politics/kash-patel-critics-fbi-takeover/index.html) he created in 2023, said this week that the agency would investigate its former director and Trump nemesis James Comey. Efforts by Elon Musk’s Dept. of Government Efficiency to [access](https://www.propublica.org/article/doge-elon-musk-hud-housing-discrimination-privacy-domestic-violence) government data have raised separate privacy concerns. “The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is one of the only independent watchdogs over government surveillance with the power to alert Congress and the public about abuses of government power,” said Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the intelligence committee. “Given Donald Trump’s attempt to fire the Democratic members of the board and weaponize intelligence agencies with extreme partisan Republicans and MAGA loyalists, a functioning, independent PCLOB has never been more important.” Expand to continue reading ↓ Alex is a writer and editor at Fast Company, where he covers technology, science, and politics. Previously he was founding editor in chief and producer of Motherboard at Vice, where he led an award-winning team of web and video journalists [More](https://www.fastcompany.com/user/alex-pasternack)