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The Kash Patel story is alarming - as is the larger story it tells about Trump and those around him [1]
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Date: 2022-08-20
Kash Patel, AKA K$H, Trump loyalist, Children's book Author, Attorney, chief of staff to the Acting United States Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump, has worked at the United States National Security Council and United States House of Representatives and was previously a federal public defender, a federal prosecutor working on national security cases, and a legal liaison to the United States Armed Forces. As an aide to Devin Nunes, Patel played a key role in helping Republican attempts to fight the investigations into Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Taken from wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kash_Patel)
One of the things that marks the Trump administration is the cast of sycophants, con-artists, fanatics, crooks, and just plain crazy people that flock to Trump. Many supposedly wise people comforted themselves with the expectation that a man who had never served in public office, was a sexual predator, had no clue about how government worked, had a track record as a con artist businessman with a string of failures behind him, a man who vowed to “drain the swamp” — all that yet they thought he would ‘grow in the job’ and would be surrounded by competent people who would provide him with good counsel.
At the beginning, there were people who attempted to play that ‘good counselor’ role. None of them lasted very long or were able to restrain Trump, whose prime requirement for staffing his administration was surrounding himself with people who would kiss his butt, tell him only what he wanted to hear, demonstrate unquestioning loyalty, and could be disposed of whenever he needed a scapegoat or they offended him in some way.
When you look beneath the spray-on tan makeup…
Somebody better page Dark Brandon.
If the Joker ever became president, the crew around him would look a lot like the way Trump ran the White House. It would not be too outrageous to characterize working for Trump as entering into an S&M relationship — and Trump attracted some real Sadists. Power over others is a key element of that kind of relationship, and there’s no question Trump loves that. (See Bob Altemeyer’s characterization of Authoritarian High SDO leaders, via Sara Robinson.)
Of the numerous obsessions and conspiracy theories Trump spins out, investigations into the numerous connections between him and Russia spawned his whole “RussiaGate” conspiracy claim. The gist of it is that all the allegations that Russia helped him get elected, and that he welcomed Russian help are a total fiction — Fake NEWS, a witch hunt, etc. etc.
Speculation about the records he stole from the White House has included the idea that he was planning to release classified documents that would “prove’ it was all a conspiracy against him — which is where Kash Patel comes in.
Tim Weiner, a former national security correspondent for The New York Times had a recent opinion piece: The Mysteries of Mar-a-Lago.
Donald J. Trump loves to attack the “deep state” — the imaginary cabal of soldiers, spies and secret agents seeking to destroy him from within the government. In the last year of his presidency, he aimed to slay that mythical beast. He placed loyalists in powerful posts atop the intelligence community and the Pentagon, seeking to rifle through their top-secret files in search of evidence that the “deep state” spied on his 2016 campaign, then framed him for his dealings with Russia and Ukraine, acts for which he was investigated and impeached.
One of those loyalists is Patel.
Full photo of Patel, official portrait taken at the Pentagon. Mr. Patel, who sports a large lapel pin reading “K$H,” was one of the Trump appointees who led the attempt to uncover the secrets of the “deep state” that consumed the president during his last year in power. He served, by turns, as the right hand to the acting director of national intelligence and the acting secretary of defense. And in his desperate final weeks in office, Mr. Trump came close to making Mr. Patel acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Faced with the wrath of the actual director, Gina Haspel, the president backed down at the last minute. But Mr. Patel remained in the ex-president’s orbit as the confrontation over the Mar-a-Lago cache slowly escalated this spring. In June, when he became an official National Archives representative, a Trump spokeswoman emphasized that Mr. Patel was working to disclose “documents that reveal a clear conspiracy to unlawfully spy on candidate and then President Donald J. Trump” — in other words, the same sorts of documents he seems to have been seeking to uncover at the highest levels of American intelligence two years ago, at Mr. Trump’s command. (Mr. Patel did not return an email seeking comment.)
There’s little question that Trump is at the center of a fantasy world, and that he violently resists any efforts to unravel the alternative reality that is his natural habitat. It’s his brand, and reality is his Kryptonite.
Several days ago I posted about Trump and Patel, discussing the possibility that documents at Mar-a-Lago might have been part of Patel’s efforts to bolster the “RussiaGate” CT from Trump. While writing it up I ran across Patel’s book that has transformed the conspiracy theory into a tale aimed at children. To repeat from that diary:
The ABC NEWS report mentions in passing that Patel wrote a children’s book. “The Plot Against the King” is one book Trump might actually have read — it has colorful pictures and he’s the hero — along with Wizard Patel and Duke Devin. And it’s not just Hillary who’s the villain; there’s a “Shifty Knight” who claims he found proof King Trump cheated in a “steel box”, a “Keeper Komey” and fake heralds. You can’t make this stuff up — although Patel can. From the blurb at Amazon: Hillary Queenton and her shifty knight had spread lies that King Donald had cheated to become King. They claimed he was working with the Russionians! But how could that be? Join Kash, the Distinguished Discoverer as he uncovers the plot against the King, and who was really behind all the lies. The Amazon link for the book has sample pages — see for yourself if you think you can stand it. At the publisher’s website, they are explicit about what they want to do with this book. Book Description A key player in uncovering one of our nation's biggest injustices tells the whole story—for kids! Kash Patel partners with Beacon of Freedom Publishing House, an imprint of BRAVE Books, to bring a fantastical retelling of Hillary’s horrible plot against Trump to the whole family. Full of fake heralds and keeper Komey’s spying slugs, this is a story of daring and danger. But never fear! Kash the Distinguished Discoverer will win the day. What Patel has to say: I believe it is important for everyone to know the true story behind the Steele Dossier, and the Russian collusion narrative.
This book is one way I'm doing my part to share the truth. This story cannot be forgotten I also had the honor of contributing to a documentary, The Plot Against the President, where I, Devin, Donald Trump Jr., and several others told our story in much more detail.
To get an idea of how Patel sees himself in his quest to prove that “RussiaGate” is all a Fake News hoax, The Plot Against the King reveals perhaps more than Patel realizes. Here’s a sample page from the book:
Trump is not the only one with an exaggerated sense of his capabilities.
Now it may be reading too much into what is intended to be a book for children. (And Trump and his base — but I repeat myself.) Given what we’ve seen time and time again however, from Trump and those around him, it would seem more credible to take this exactly as what it shows about them and their view of the world.
There’s something about those eyes...
If Patel was the only person around Trump like this, that would be troubling, especially given the high levels of access he had to the most sensitive information the government possesses. Unfortunately, Trump surrounded himself with acolytes like Patel, inserting them everywhere as Weiner points out. How many of them remain? How much damage have they done and will continue to do?
Even more troubling is the prospect that a second Trump administration would see Trump installing as many loyalists as possible all through the government, and purging those who would not give him total fealty.
The Republican Party would be fine with all that. Brandi Buchman quoted former CIA Director Michael Hayden on just how dangerous the GOP has become.
..Hayden is a retired four-star general who served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and director of the National Security Agency (NSA) under former President George W. Bush. His position on today’s GOP was offered on Twitter when he retweeted a post from Edward Luce, the associate editor of the Financial Times. “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close,” Luce wrote. “I agree. And I was the CIA director,” Hayden tweeted in response on Wednesday.
Children’s stories are usually meant to be instructive as well as entertaining. “Is our children learning?”
Patel and Trump. May they never again be found in this room.
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