Former Trump national security adviser Bolton says Senate should reject Patel for FBI director

Former national security adviser John Bolton says the Senate should reject Kash Patel as FBI director if he is nominated as promised by President-elect Donald Trump.

“Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty Beria. Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD,” Bolton told CNN, referencing Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s chief of the secret police. “The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0.”

Bolton was one of several national security advisers who served and then eventually resigned or were fired during Trump’s first term in the White House. He has since become a vocal Trump critic.

Trump’s announcement on Patel, a loyalist to the president-elect and fierce critic of the FBI, has set up another potentially explosive confirmation battle in the Senate, where members are already bracing for how they’ll navigate a slew of unorthodox Trump picks.