Inside Trump’s dramatic potential plan to shake up the FBI
The FBI seal is seen in Omaha
(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump is considering shaking up the leadership at the FBI by firing the director and installing an experienced former agent and MAGA loyalist in the top two roles.
Trump has planned for months to fire Christopher Wray if he was elected, but in recent days has struggled to find a compromise of selecting a new director who can carry out his agenda while also being Senate confirmed. That concern only increased after it became clear his first pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, was facing an uphill confirmation battle before he withdrew his name.
With that context in mind, Trump has considered one potential option: naming Mike Rogers, a former FBI special agent and former Michigan congressman who just narrowly lost a Senate race, as the FBI director, while putting Kash Patel, a controversial MAGA loyalist, in as the deputy FBI director, according to several familiar with Trump’s thinking.
The plan could please Senate Republicans concerned about Trump’s plans to disrupt the FBI — while also appeasing the MAGA orbit that has been frustrated about why more of their allies haven’t been placed into top jobs, sources told CNN.
Former Trump FBI deputy director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said Thursday that Rogers would be a “totally reasonable, logical selection” to nominate to lead the agency, pointing to his knowledge of the intelligence community and his experience at the FBI. But McCabe cautioned against empowering Patel, saying on CNN’s “The Source” that “no part of the FBI’s mission is safe with Kash Patel in any position of leadership in the FBI. And certainly not in the deputy director’s job.”
“It’s inconceivable to me that an outsider with no experience in the organization, no knowledge of the work and the scope of authority that’s involved there could perform adequately,” McCabe, who Trump fired from his post hours before his retirement in 2018, said.
As his advisers know best, nothing is final with Trump until it is posted in his own words on Truth Social.
Trump has interviewed multiple candidates down at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, several sources told CNN. Some names have fallen out of contention only to quickly be thrown back in, and Trump has fielded calls from old friends on the matter.
CNN has reached out to the Trump transition team and the FBI for comment.
News of Patel’s consideration for the deputy role comes after CNN reported earlier this week that Trump was weighing a push from right-wing allies to name him to the top post at the bureau – with multiple sources familiar with the Trump transition process expressing deep concern about the possibility.
Sources previously said that Patel had been lobbying for the FBI director position, where he would be well-positioned to try to investigate Trump’s political enemies, declassify sensitive information and purge career civil servants.
Patel, who rose to prominence within the president-elect’s orbit during his first term, was floated as a potential replacement when Trump considered firing then-CIA director Gina Haspel after the 2020 election. He also briefly considered installing Patel as deputy FBI director in the closing weeks of his first administration.
The deputy FBI director job is a career position – not a politically appointed role – and then-Attorney General William Barr helped talk Trump out of putting Patel at the bureau at the time.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Sara Murray, Zachary Cohen, Evan Perez, Pamela Brown and Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
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