Robert O’Brien in WSJ: ‘Kash Patel Is Right For the FBI’

Robert O’Brien in WSJ: ‘Kash Patel Is Right For the FBI’

The following is from the Trump Team. 

Former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien in the Wall Street Journal: “President-elect Trump has assembled one of the most diverse and capable cabinets in American history, and he has done so at a record pace. His nomination of Kash Patel to be director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is an excellent choice that adds further luster to the new administration.

Mr. Patel will be a worthy successor to my friend Director Christopher Wray. The nominee is the son of Indian immigrants who fled beautiful East Africa for New York because of discrimination and the abuse of the rule of law by a tyrant in their homeland.

Mr. Patel served as the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism when I was White House national security adviser. I was able to count on him to get any job done, no matter how complex or difficult. Mr. Patel handled some of the nation’s most sensitive issues with care and discretion.

He led the interagency team that took down the ISIS caliphate. He was in the Situation Room when the president and his team watched our special forces bring justice to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, murderer of Kayla Mueller, James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig.

I saw him demonstrate personal bravery in his professional life. American journalist Austin Tice has been held hostage for more than 12 years, presumably by the Syrian government. In 2020, the Syrians finally agreed to talk to U.S. officials about Mr. Tice—but only in Damascus. I asked Mr. Patel and Ambassador Roger Carstens if they would go. They agreed. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opposed sending them because the mission was so dangerous.

Messrs. Patel and Carstens traveled overland from Beirut to Damascus through territory where the al Nusra Front, al Qaeda, ISIS and Hezbollah were all potentially present. They drove all the way to Damascus to meet with the head of Bashar al-Assad’s intelligence service. The Syrians themselves could easily have taken them hostage. Unfortunately, the negotiations didn’t succeed, and Mr. Tice is still missing. I remember being very relieved when Messrs. Patel and Carstens made it back to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

Mr. Patel’s qualifications for FBI director far exceed his work hunting terrorists and rescuing hostages at the NSC. He was a federal public defender representing those accused of crimes, a federal prosecutor, a Justice Department staff member in Washington and a staff member for the House Intelligence Committee, where he exposed unlawful surveillance activities inside the FBI.

After his time at the NSC, Mr. Patel served as chief of staff to the acting director of national intelligence and later held that same position for the acting defense secretary. According to his superiors and colleagues, he excelled in each of these positions.

Mr. Patel has an impressively broad background in federal criminal law and U.S. national-security matters. If his critics would take off their partisan lenses and look at his résumé objectively, they would see he is one of the most experienced people ever to be nominated for FBI director. There was a time when Democrats would have applauded a president for appointing a director with criminal-defense experience and who fought against the FBI illegally surveilling American citizens.

I have no doubt that Mr. Patel will return our top-flight FBI agents to fighting crime and arresting the gang members, terrorists, spies and traffickers whose activities have surged over our open borders in recent years. Under his leadership the FBI will no longer harass parents who speak up at PTA meetings and Catholics who attend the Latin Mass or conduct lawfare against Mr. Trump and senior GOP officials.

The FBI is America’s premier law-enforcement agency. It should never be used as a tool of a political party or an ideological agenda, but sadly, that is how millions of Americans perceive the bureau today. Mr. Patel is a highly qualified nominee with the courage and integrity to reform the FBI and restore its once-sterling reputation with the American people. The FBI needs Director Kash Patel, and so does the nation.”