Trump’s nomination of controversial Kash Patel to head FBI prompts swift and strong reactions: Live

Republicans spent at least $215 million on attack ads about transgender rights. The question is, did it actually move voters?

Limitations of US law shield most journalists, but long-term use of the Espionage Act to prosecute leakers provides Trump an alleyway to attack critics.

Washington DC reporter John Bowden provides analysis about what Patel’s nomination could mean for the First Amendement.

Donald Trump has announced he will appoint Massad Boulos, a billionaire from Lebanon whose son Michael is married to Tiffany Trump, to serve as his senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.

Boulos is the second father of one of the President-elect’s son-in-laws to be selected for a position in his forthcoming administration, following the nomination of Charles Kushner – father of Jared Kushner, on Saturday.

Though he may be running the FBI in a matter of months, Kash Patel has previously signaled through interviews and public statements a determination to upend the agency and radically reshape its mission.

He’s called for dramatically reducing its footprint and limiting its authority, as well as going after government officials who disclose information to reporters.

In an interview earlier this year on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Patel vowed to sever the FBI’s intelligence-gathering activities from the rest of its mission and said he would “shut down” the bureau’s headquarters building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state.’”

“And I’d take the seven thousand employees that work in that building and send them across America to go chase down criminals,” he added.

In a separate interview with conservative strategist Steve Bannon, 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.”

Reyna Montoya was 10 when she and her family fled violence in Tijuana and illegally immigrated to the U.S.

Growing up in Arizona, she worried even a minor traffic violation could lead to her deportation. She didn’t feel relief until 11 years later in 2012, when she received a letter confirming she had been accepted to a new program for immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.

But as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, after an unsuccessful bid to end DACA in his first term, the roughly 535,000 current recipients are bracing yet again for a whirlwind of uncertainty. Meanwhile, a years-long challenge to DACA could ultimately render it illegal, leaving people like Montoya without a shield from deportation.

FBI Director Christopher Wray was appointed director by Trump in 2017 and has three years left on his 10-year tenure.

Presidents have typically but not always retained the director who was in place at the time they took office, as Democratic President Joe Biden has done with Wray, the Associated Press reported.

Trump’s announcement of Kash Patel as his pick for FBI director means that Wray can either resign from the job, consistent with the president-elect’s apparent wishes, or wait to be fired once Trump takes office in January.

Either way, the selection of a successor is a clear indication that Wray’s days are numbered.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has compared Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s nomination for head of FBI, to one of the Soviet Union’s most feared and brutal secret police chiefs.

“Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty Beria,” Bolton said, speaking to NBC News’ “Meet The Press” on Sunday. “Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD. The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0.”

NKVD refers to the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union, which was in place from 1934 to 1946.

Lavrentiy Beria was appointed by Joseph Stalin as deputy chief of the Soviet secret police and was head of the Soviet atomic bomb project, according to the Atomic Heritage Foundation.

He is known for his violent tactics, including kidnapping, torture and rape, which he used to advance within the ranks of the secret police.

Trump’s victory saw his Republican allies flip the Senate and hold the House of Representatives by the thinnest of majorities, giving Democrats plenty of time to lick their wounds, sift through the ashes of defeat and figure out what comes next.

As various factions play the blame game, progressive Democrats who remain in Congress, albeit in the minority, are trying to offer an appealing alternative to the voters who ditched their party in November.

Donald Trump has announced he will nominate MAGA loyalist Kash Patel to lead the FBI.

Trump announced his pick of Patel, who has pledged to go after Trump’s enemies in the media, on Saturday evening.

A conspiracy theorist who wants to restrain federal law enforcement agencies, Patel has advocated for firing workers and going on a prosecution spree to fulfill Trump’s promise of retribution. He is a Trump loyalist who has railed against the so-called “Deep State.” Even among the most staunch MAGA loyalists, he is viewed as a controversial figure.