When President-elect Donald Trump announced that Kash Patel will be his nominee to become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, my reaction was not subtle. In an on-air appearance on MSNBC, I warned that, if confirmed, Patel "would be like if you crossed Alex Jones with J. Edgar Hoover."
It's an assessment that I stand behind three weeks later, even as Patel's nomination has failed to garner the same kind of pushback from Republican senators as some of Trump's other controversial picks. If my comparison comes across as glib, or as one outlet called it, "apoplectic," it's because Hoover's tyranny and similarities to Jones, the conspiracy theorist and former InfoWars host, have been downplayed over the decades since his death. It also then fails to acknowledge how much worse Patel is poised to be if given the chance.
This is a preview of Hayes Brown's latest article. Read the full column here.
