Would you buy a used covert operation from this man?
Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence and national security contributor for NBC News and MSNBC, flagged this on the hellsite. (Yes, I still monitor.):
Kash Patel’s knees are scabbed from making obeisance to Donald Trump. And he’s got a fanatic’s zeal (check the eyes) for punishing Trump’s enemies. Which is why Trump wants to make him director of the FBI next year.
Hettena points out at SpyTalk just how cavalierly Kash Patel operates in the security sphere:
On October 30, 2020, President Trump signed off on a mission to have SEAL Team Six rescue Philip Walton, a 27-year-old American who gunmen had abducted from his farm in the West African nation of Niger, near the border with Nigeria. The kidnappers had hustled Walton across the border to Nigeria and were demanding a $1 million ransom.
In their book Only I Can Fix It, journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reported that the plan called for the SEALs to parachute into northern Nigeria and move three miles on foot to reach the compound where Walton was being held.
Overflying Nigeria required permission from thge Nigerian government. I know you are surprised that the Trump administration bothered. But the Pentagon thought it best not to violate another country’s sovereignty without asking.
Patel told Secretary of Defense Mark Esper that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “got the airspace cleared.”
Um, no. Pompeo later told Esper that he’d never spoken with Patel.
A few hours later, the Pentagon learned that Patel’s information was — what? — inaccurate. By this point, the SEALS were minutes away from crossing into Nigerian airspace. The aircraft circled for an hour while State obtained the necessary clearances.
The mission proceded successfully with no SEAL injuries.
But the Pentagon was still furious at Patel. Tony Tata, the Pentagon official to whom Patel had given the green light, confronted Patel in a rage.
“You could’ve gotten these guys killed!” Tata shouted at Patel, according to a report in The Atlantic. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Patel’s response was: “If nobody got hurt, who the fuck cares?”
Yes, put that man in charge of a federal law enforcement agency and his agent’s lives.