All this smoke led both Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) of the House Judiciary Committee and Sen. Dick Durbin of the Senate Judiciary Committee to announce Thursday that they would launch an investigation into Patel’s use of public resources.
The two Democrats noted that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent Patel a letter in May where he “raised serious concerns” about the FBI director’s “use of government aircraft, his purchase of a fleet of luxury BMW vehicles, and whether he has reimbursed taxpayers for personal travel.”
Patel didn’t comment on the investigation, but a senior agency official told NewsNation that the accusations in Grassley’s letter “are completely false.”
However, Patel did respond via his personal X account to an MS NOW article posted Friday titled “Kash Patel Can’t Count On Trump’s Protection Forever” where editor Hayes Brown gently explains that it “would be a mistake” for the FBI head to “assume that the umbra of invincibility that covers the president reaches the FBI director as well.”
Trump has proved time and again that no amount of previous loyalty can make him stick his own neck out to protect his inner circle.
If Patel tries to test this for himself, he runs the risk of becoming a lightning rod, drawing down the wrath of every frustrated Republican who knows it’s much easier to savage the people around Trump than aiming at the president himself.
The FBI director didn’t see it that way:
Patel might have assumed ― or hope ― that his comment would at least own those danged libs, but the response suggested that the MS NOW critique was possibly on point.