特朗普任命忠诚派卡什·帕特尔担任联邦调查局局长
【中美创新时报2024 年 11 月 30 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）当选总统唐纳德·特朗普选择卡什·帕特尔担任联邦调查局局长，转向一位坚定的忠诚派来颠覆美国首屈一指的执法机构，并清除政府中所谓的“阴谋家”。这是特朗普向华盛顿建制派投掷的最新重磅炸弹，也是对参议院共和党人在确认他的提名人方面会走多远的考验。对此，美联社埃里克·塔克和艾伦·苏德曼作了下述报道。
“我很自豪地宣布，卡西亚普·“卡什”·帕特尔将担任下一任联邦调查局局长，”特朗普周六晚上在 Truth Social 上发帖称。 “卡什是一位出色的律师、调查员和‘美国优先’斗士，他的职业生涯都在揭露腐败、捍卫正义和保护美国人民。”
这次任命符合特朗普的观点，即政府的执法和情报机构需要彻底改革，以及他声称要对所谓的对手进行报复。这表明特朗普仍对多年来笼罩着他第一届政府并导致他被起诉的联邦调查感到愤怒，他正将他认为会保护而不是审查他的亲密盟友推到联邦调查局和司法部的首位。
特朗普周六晚上写道，帕特尔“在揭露‘俄罗斯、俄罗斯、俄罗斯’骗局中发挥了关键作用，是真相、问责制和宪法的倡导者”。
目前尚不清楚帕特尔是否会得到共和党主导的参议院的批准，尽管特朗普也提出了利用休会任命来推动他的任命的可能性。
帕特尔将取代克里斯托弗·雷，后者于 2017 年被特朗普任命，但很快失去了总统及其盟友的支持。尽管该职位的任期为 10 年，但考虑到特朗普长期以来公开批评他和联邦调查局，包括搜查其佛罗里达州房产中的机密文件以及两次导致他被起诉的调查，雷的免职并不令人意外。
如果实施帕特尔过去的提议，将导致该机构发生剧烈变化，该机构的任务不仅包括调查违反联邦法律的行为，还包括保护国家免受恐怖袭击、外国间谍活动和其他威胁。
他呼吁大幅减少联邦调查局的足迹，这一观点使他与之前为该局寻求更多资源的局长截然不同，并建议关闭该局在华盛顿的总部并“第二天将其重新开放，作为深层政府博物馆”——这是特朗普对联邦官僚机构的贬义词。
尽管司法部在 2021 年停止了在泄密调查期间秘密扣押记者电话记录的做法，但帕特尔表示，他打算积极追捕向记者泄露信息的政府官员，并修改法律，使起诉记者变得更加容易。
去年 12 月接受史蒂夫·班农采访时，帕特尔表示，他和其他人“将出去寻找阴谋家，不仅是政府，还有媒体。”
“我们将追查那些在媒体上撒谎帮助乔·拜登操纵总统选举的美国公民的人，”帕特尔说，他指的是 2020 年的总统大选，民主党挑战者拜登击败了特朗普。 “我们会追查你，无论是刑事还是民事。我们会弄清楚的。但是，是的，我们会向你们所有人发出警告。”
帕特尔的父母是印度移民，曾担任公设辩护人，在担任众议院情报常设委员会职员之前，他曾担任司法部检察官数年，之后引起了特朗普政府的注意。
特朗普周六还宣布，他将提名佛罗里达州希尔斯伯勒县最高执法官员查德·克罗尼斯特警长担任缉毒局局长。
“作为缉毒局局长，查德将与我们伟大的司法部长帕姆·邦迪合作，确保边境安全，阻止芬太尼和其他非法毒品流入南部边境，拯救生命，”特朗普在 Truth Social 上宣布这一选择的帖子中写道。
题图：代理国防部长克里斯托弗·米勒的前幕僚长卡什·帕特尔于 2022 年 10 月 8 日在内华达州明登的集会上发表讲话。José Luis Villegas/美联社
附原英文报道：
Trump names loyalist Kash Patel to serve as FBI director
By ERIC TUCKER and ALAN SUDERMAN The Associated Press,Updated November 30, 2024, 26
Kash Patel, former chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, speaks at a rally in Minden, Nev., Oct. 8, 2022.José Luis Villegas/Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has picked Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, turning to a fierce loyalist to upend America’s premier law enforcement agency and rid the government of perceived “conspirators.” It’s the latest bombshell Trump has thrown at the Washington establishment and a test for how far Senate Republicans will go in confirming his nominees.
“I am proud to announce that Kashyap “Kash” Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Trump posted Saturday night on Truth Social. “Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.”
The selection is in keeping with Trump’s view that the government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries. It shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he believes will protect rather than scrutinize him.
Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday night.
It remains unclear whether Patel could be confirmed, even by a Republican-led Senate, though Trump has also raised the prospect of using recess appointments to push his selections through.
Patel would replace Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 but quickly fell out of favor with the president and his allies. Though the position carries a 10-year term, Wray’s removal was not unexpected given Trump’s long-running public criticism of him and the FBI, including after a search of his Florida’s property for classified documents and two investigations that resulted in his indictment.
Patel’s past proposals, if carried out, would lead to convulsive change for an agency tasked not only with investigating violations of federal law but also protecting the country from terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and other threats.
He’s called for dramatically reducing the FBI’s footprint, a perspective that dramatically sets him apart from earlier directors who have sought additional resources for the bureau, and has suggested closing down the bureau’s headquarters in Washington and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state” — Trump’s pejorative catch-all for the federal bureaucracy.
And though the Justice Department in 2021 halted the practice of secretly seizing reporters’ phone records during leak investigation, Patel has said he intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters and change the law to make it easier to sue journalists.
During an interview with Steve Bannon last December, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media.”
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 presidential election in which Biden, the Democratic challenger, defeated Trump. “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
The child of Indian immigrants and a former public defender, Patel spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before catching the Trump administration’s attention as a staffer for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Trump also announced Saturday that he will nominate Sheriff Chad Chronister, the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, Florida, to serve as the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
“As DEA Administrator, Chad will work with our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to secure the Border, stop the flow of Fentanyl, and other Illegal Drugs, across the Southern Border, and SAVE LIVES,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social announcing the pick.
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin
