December 2, 2024
On really just not caring apparently...
We got two bits of news this weekend that I know how to process and yet am not terribly eager to. The first came Saturday night, when Donald Trump announced Kash Patel as his pick to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’ll be honest and say I don’t know a ton about Patel beyond the rumors. I do know what he said on Steve Bannon’s War Room. In a second Trump administration, he said, “We will go out and find the conspirators [against Trump] not just in government, but in media.” Continuing, he said, “We’re going to come after you whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out.” And then he added, “This is not just rhetoric. We are dead serious about this.” So I’m not overly crazy about that. On the plus side of Patel’s ledger, as a congressional aide he was a lead author on what came to be known as the “Nunes Memo,” a Republican congressional intelligence report shedding light on the dodgy source for the Russia collusion story that dogged Trump for much of his first term. The memo was panned at the time of its release, cast aside in favor of Adam Schiff’s competing report claiming all the i’s and t’s in Schiff’s accusations were dotted and crossed respectively. They weren’t.
Still, there’s reporting Trump’s aides encouraged him not to nominate Patel to head the FBI. Quotes like the one above won’t do the man — or the incoming administration — any favors in confirmation hearings. Here are a few questions I can think of off the top of my head: “Sir, you said you would go after Trump’s critics, whom you dubbed ‘conspirators.’ You said it wasn’t just rhetoric. You said, ‘We are dead serious about this.‘ Who is the ‘we’ to whom you were referring? Also, you said you would go after these ‘conspirators’ criminally or civilly. What makes one a conspirator? How is your specific threat of prosecution not lawfare? Are you now saying lawfare is appropriate?” Like I said, those are off the top of my head and concern a single quote. Trump’s aides know more about the guy than I do. What are they worried Patel will be asked? Or do?
So that was the first bit of news. Then there was the news last night that President Biden pardoned his son Hunter for crimes known and unknown going back more than ten years (one attorney who worked in the Justice Department’s pardon division called it the most sweeping pardon she’d seen since Ford pardoned Nixon). This despite the president’s multiple assurances to the American people that he wouldn’t pardon him. None of us was born yesterday, so we don’t have to pretend a politician lying is surprising. But that doesn’t mean the brazenness of the lie can’t be insulting. When I told someone the news — someone healthily unfazed by politics, mind you — she gasped.
So here are a few questions I can think of for President Biden off the top of my head. “You previously said you trusted the justice system and wouldn’t pardon your son. In announcing the pardon, you said ‘any reasonable person’ could see these prosecutions were political. How do you reconcile those two statements? Do you no longer trust the justice system? How many others found guilty of tax evasion will you pardon? Was this decision actually made over Thanksgiving as you claim, or did you make up your mind after the election? Or after he was found guilty by a jury of his peers in one case and pleaded guilty in another? How are those who supported you — politicians and Americans alike — supposed to interpret and defend this about-face?” Like I said, those are just off the top of my head.
Since we have time to see how the Patel nomination will play out — and since he will face Senate questioning provided he doesn’t withdraw his nomination — today’s link is a blazing missive about the Hunter Biden pardon. Because Joe Biden will not face questions about the pardon. He’s gone to Africa, where he will likely answer as many of the press’ questions as he answered on his recent trip to South America. For those keeping score, he answered zero on that trip. None. Here’s a reporter rather desperately confirming it. Since Biden won’t be answering questions, Karine Jean-Pierre has her work cut out for her today. I don’t envy her. I might envy Hunter Biden, though.