The Man Who Will Do Anything for Trump

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The Man Who Will Do Anything for Trump

Why Kash Patel is exactly the kind of person who would serve in a second Trump administration

www.theatlantic.com

Politics

The Man Who Will Do Anything for Trump​

Why Kash Patel is exactly the kind of person who would serve in a second Trump administration
By Elaina Plott Calabro
Illustrations by Diego Mallo

Kash Patel was dangerous. On this both Trump appointees and career officials could agree.

A 40-year-old lawyer with little government experience, he joined the administration in 2019 and rose rapidly. Each new title set off new alarms.

When Patel was installed as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense just after the 2020 election, Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised him not to break the law in order to keep President Donald Trump in power. “Life looks really shytty from behind bars,” Milley reportedly told Patel. (Patel denies this.)

When Trump entertained naming Patel deputy director of the FBI, Attorney General Bill Barr confronted the White House chief of staff and said, “Over my dead body.”

When, in the final weeks of the administration, Trump planned to name Patel deputy director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, the agency’s head, threatened to resign. Trump relented only after an intervention by Vice President Mike Pence and others.


It wasn’t a question of ideology. He wasn’t a zealot like Stephen Miller, trying to make the bureaucracy yield to his agenda. Rather, Patel appeared singularly focused on pleasing Trump. Even in an administration full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his devotion.








@Professor Emeritus

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Once people realized that power in a Trump Administration depended solely on how much you kiss Trump's ass, it became a race to the bottom to see who would grovel for him the most.

JD Vance caught on to this early and by grinding hard at it, he got the VP nod. Steven Cheung as well became Trump's spokesperson this way. Vish Burra is another one to look out for as he fits this mode and has been angling to get into Trump's orbit since forever, but is a combination of toxic and incompetent that even Trump might not touch (unless he like Laura Loomer had different body parts).