(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Kash Patel, the MAGA dipshit who Trump wants to put in charge of the FBI, is no one’s idea of a serious person. This is a guy who left a post on the National Security Council to run the wingnut grift circuit.
Can he interest you in some wine? American flag tchotchkes? Children’s books about King Donald, the evil Hillary Queen, and a heroic wizard named Kash?
K$H! … You’re damn right.
Patel has been very busy shouting about all the Deep State enemies who will be brought to justice when he’s in charge. This list includes obvious ones, like Robert Mueller, Alexander Vindman, and President Biden. But it’s also got some surprises, like Pat Cipollone, the former White House Counsel to Trump, and Chris Wray, the current director of the FBI, whom Trump nominated for a ten-year term in 2017 and who will be shoved aside to make way for Kash himself.
But now Kash has set his sites on a new target: former Mike Pence aide Olivia Troye. Troye, a lifelong Republican who turned into a vocal Trump critic, said mean words about Kash on teevee, and this is not allowed.
Today, Kash Patel sent a letter to my counsel @MarkSZaidEsq– threatening legal action & demanding that I retract my comments on MSNBC about his unfitness to serve as FBI Director. This aligns with his threats against the media & political opponents, revealing how he might conduct… pic.twitter.com/BJU90haUhO
— Olivia of Troye (@OliviaTroye) December 4, 2024
Patel is bigly mad about Troye’s appearance on MSNBC last week, and he’s threatening to sue:
On December 2, 2024, you appeared as a live guest on MSNBC and made several false and defamatory statements about Mr. Patel. These comments include that Mr. Patel would “lie about intelligence” and would “lie about making things up on operations” to the point where Mr. Patel “put the lives of Navy Seals at risk when it came to Nigeria,” and that Mr. Patel was even misinforming Vice President Mike Pence.
Last week, Troye referred to a widely reported episode where Patel is said to have lied about securing permission from Nigeria for SEAL Team 6 to enter that country’s airspace for a hostage rescue operation. And Patel is big mad about it.
“This is a complete fabrication, and you know it is false by virtue of your former position in the White House,” he fumes. “Mr. Patel demands that you retract your lies in a public statement on your X account within five business days of receipt of this letter. Unless this step is taken, Mr. Patel will take swift legal action to uphold his rights and reputation.”
The wanking motion is implied.
Patel is in fact a lawyer, but, amazingly, he’s not embarking on this exercise pro se. He’s accompanied by MAGA lawyer Jesse Binnall, who has represented Trump and the Trump campaign in various garbage trollsuits. He last appeared in these pages as the lawyer for North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, who filed a $50 million defamation suit against CNN and a former porn store employee. That lawsuit is going great.
And apparently Binnall and Troye have played knifey-spooney before.
“This is, of course, not the first time you have milked your former title as a means of spreading lies about associates of President Donald J. Trump. You are already embroiled in a lawsuit for your disgusting lies about Ambassador Ric Grenell on Twitter,” Binnall snarks in his Patel’s cease and desist howlergram.
Of course Binnall represents Grenell in that lawsuit against Troye — there are only three lawyers in Trumpland, and he’s one of them. Troye filed a motion to dismiss under Virginia’s SLAPP law that has been pending since May.
Meanwhile Republicans in the Senate seem alarmingly receptive to Patel’s nomination. What could possibly go wrong if we put a thin-skinned bully who has vowed to take revenge on anyone who criticizes him in charge of the nation’s law enforcement?
Good thing that guy didn’t sexually harass any women, or he might be in real trouble.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.