Kash Patel’s Biggest Obstacle Could Be His Own Enemies List

Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to take over the FBI, has put together an enemies list composed of members of the so-called “deep state.” But he may have already ruined his own plans to prosecute any of those people.

Paul Rosenzweig, the former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, thinks that Patel has doomed his revenge plot by openly discussing it, he wrote in The Bulwark Friday.

Rosenzweig explains that if accused criminals can prove that their prosecution is vindictive, they have grounds to rebut the charges. Usually, that’s very hard for defendants to prove, but Patel’s many interviews and the long enemies list in his book Government Gangsters provide that proof.

“If Kash Patel becomes director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as President Trump has suggested he should, he will be the poster child of vindictiveness—and his infamous public declarations of retribution may lead to the dismissal of any politically motivated prosecutions he initiates against his enemies list of ‘Deep State’ opponents,” Rosenzweig writes.

Even if Patel has actual credible evidence against any of the people on that list, he has preemptively hurt those efforts, according to Rosenzweig.

“A defendant can still succeed if he or she can present direct evidence showing that the prosecution was intended as retribution, notwithstanding the fact that actual crimes may have occurred,” the ex-Bush administration official writes.

Patel has already demonstrated a willingness to go after his own critics, threatening legal action against Olivia Troye, his former colleague from the first Trump administration, after she criticized him during an appearance on MSNBC. Democratic and Republican senators alike reportedly aren’t in favor of his nomination, preferring that current FBI Director Christopher Wray serve out the rest of his 10-year term. If Patel has actually messed up Trump’s chances to take revenge against enemies, the MAGA loyalist might soon lose the support of the president-elect too.