Cruz Mocks ‘Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth’ Over Patel Pick for FBI Chief

Will Neal
·2-min read
Texas Senator Ted Cruz speaks with CBS News' Face the Nation on December 1, 2024.
CBS News

Just in, a hot take from everyone’s least favorite senator on the nomination of Kash Patel as incoming FBI chief.

Speaking with CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told host Major Garett that criticism of Patel’s perceived lack of qualifications for the post has come only from commentators alarmed at the prospect of a “real reformer” heading up the agency.

“I gotta say, all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, people pulling their hair out, are the people dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI and clean out the corrupted partisans who sadly have burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI,” the firebrand Texan told the network.

“The FBI and the Department of Justice are two institutions incredibly important to the rule of law in the United States,” he added. “I revere both, and one of the most tragic consequences of four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is, both the DOJ and the FBI have been politicized and weaponized, and I think Kash Patel is a very strong nominee to take on the partisan corruption in the FBI.”

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Current FBI director Christopher Wray was nominated to the post by Donald Trump in 2017 after his predecessor, James Comey, was fired as part of a suspected effort to ease pressure on the then-president over the Mueller investigation into Russian interference during the previous year’s election.

Trump is now reportedly planning to also fire Wray, and replace him with staunch MAGA loyalist Patel, due to a deep and bitter grudge over the FBI having raided his Florida residence of Mar-a-Lago as part of an investigation into alleged concealment of classified documents in 2022.

These minor, perhaps inconvenient facts appear to have been of little consequence to Cruz during his CBS appearance on Sunday. “Listen, if you look at James Comey and Chris Wray, there has never been a period in our nation’s history where the FBI has suffered a greater loss of respect, where more Americans doubt the fundamental integrity of the FBI,” he said.

“I think either [Wray] will resign or President Trump will fire him,” Cruz added. “But it’s no secret to anybody, including Chris Wray, that he is not going to continue to serve as the head of the FBI under Donald Trump.”

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