The following is a lightly edited transcript of the September 16 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
In a surprise, Fox News is reporting that the knives are out for FBI Director Kash Patel due to a series of recent missteps, including the botching of key facts about the hunt for Charlie Kirk’s assassin. That this is coming from Fox News may be a sign of how dire Patel’s internal standing has truly become. Yet we’re in the middle of a complex moment. Even as Patel’s tenure is beset with follies, we may be facing a dramatic expansion of power for federal law enforcement, in particular to target the liberal left in response to Kirk’s assassination. Stephen Miller just telegraphed this with some new quotes that are truly grotesque. So we thought we’d take stock of all this with someone who knows about the FBI from the inside, Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent and now a prominent commentator. Asha, thanks so much for coming on.
Asha Rangappa: Thanks for having me.
Sargent: So Fox News reports that the knives are indeed out for Patel, quoting one source saying that the White House and Attorney General Pam Bondi have no confidence in him. This comes after Patel prematurely declared that the FBI had apprehended the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, but also after Patel feuded with Bondi over the release of the Epstein files, which was an utter fiasco for the administration. Asha, Fox also quotes sources close to Trump saying he’s not thrilled with Patel. What do you make of this reporting?
Rangappa: This is an incredibly image-conscious administration. Whatever ideological alignment there is, Trump, in particular, does not like to be made to look bad. And it sounds like everyone agrees on both sides of the aisle that Patel made him look bad. I mean, not just him, but his administration. This was a very bungled response from the FBI director. I don’t think we can remember any director making these kinds of missteps. And to the extent that anyone did, we could look at James Comey. I don’t know that he got into a wrangling match with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, but he clashed with her—and that was what led to his firing. Patel should have known better, I think, given who his boss is and given the history of the people in his position.
Sargent: How does Patel rank compared to previous FBI directors? This is a guy whom Trump picked precisely because he stupidly and corruptly vowed in advance to use law enforcement against Trump’s enemies. And Patel was woefully lacking in experience, too. What do you think the rank and file see in this guy?
Rangappa: Well, both he and the deputy director, Dan Bongino, they’re influencers. That’s what they are. I mean, I think it’s pretty clear to everyone that no one in this administration is being hired because of their expertise or experience. They are being hired because they’re a particular kind of celebrity in that world, right?
Sargent: This is true.
Rangappa: We now have a Fox News–to–government pipeline. And this is the influencer-to-government pipeline inside the FBI. So I don’t think he compares. I don’t think anyone would put him in the same category as previous FBI directors. And unfortunately, I think that this investigation, the Charlie Kirk investigation, is demonstrating why that experience and expertise is so important for someone in the position that Patel has. Because this is the kind of investigation that requires coordination with local partners, which requires an understanding of, I mean, frankly, like basic terms. Like if you say, like, a suspect is in custody, that generally the public believes you caught the killer, things like that, and just messaging, all of these things that it sounds like. He’s just not aware of how all of these pieces fit together.
And most importantly, the director typically just takes a back seat on all of this. In my recollection, it’s usually the head of the field office that’s handling the investigation or working with the local law enforcement. Those are the people who are in front of the cameras, if they are at all, because they’re the most familiar with the investigation.
Sargent: Fox reported that Patel has gotten guidance from Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on how to improve his relationship with Pam Bondi. And by the way, we should note that this comes from one of Fox’s real reporters, not one of its personalities. This is real reporting from inside the administration. That strikes me as a sign that he’s really on some thin ice in there. You know how this works. Does he seem like he’s on thin ice to you?
Rangappa: I think so. I think the fact that this reporting is coming from inside the bubble—and that it’s people within the tribe [who are] turning on him—matters. I mean, that’s usually the death knell for any of these people. When I look at the range of people in this world, my sense is that Trump really likes Pam Bondi. I think that if he were to trust somebody’s judgment, it would be hers. So I think she has a lot of sway. I don’t think that [Kash Patel] is somebody that JD Vance would go to bat for necessarily. So those are just not great things in Patel’s favor. Like he’s not, I think, in the MAGA Edmund totem pole necessarily at the top, as far as I can tell.
Sargent: Right. My sense of this is that yes, Pam Bondi doesn’t like him. They’ve really fallen into a place where Trump would actually take Pam Bondi’s word on a lot of this. On the other hand, Stephen Miller seems to be a tight ally of Kash Patel, probably because he’s just as lawless as Patel is and is just as determined to go after Trump’s enemies with law enforcement. And that brings me to what Miller is saying. He’s making it absolutely clear that the administration is about to ramp up a major campaign against the liberal left, including targeting many of its organizations. Listen to this from Miller.
Miller (voiceover): We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. The organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, and combining that with messaging that’s designed to trigger and cite violence. The actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence it is a vast domestic terror movement. And with God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.
Sargent: Asha, note how he keeps repeating the fiction that the organized left somehow inspired the attack on Kirk and other mass violence. And note how he says the government is going to do this crackdown using the DOJ in Kirk’s memory. They’re going to excuse this by saying they are carrying out what Kirk wanted. What’s your reaction to all this?
Rangappa: When I hear Stephen Miller speak, I just hear propaganda tactics: transferring the actions of one person to an entire group, then using that as justification. He’s using the words of law and order, but in many ways it’s an appeal to threats of force and fear. Ad baculum. In fact, he’s essentially arguing for the same thing he’s accusing his opponents of doing. It’s incredibly dangerous talk because whatever the government might do—and we can talk about what the FBI’s capabilities are to go after [these groups]—it’s also doing exactly what they say they’re condemning. It argues to the people listening that this entire group of people, the political opposition, poses an existential threat, and this encourages people to take matters into their own hands. It’s precisely the opposite of what the kind of rhetoric we need to be hearing right now.
Sargent: I’m just going to throw out a little factoid for people to chew on. When you hear Stephen Miller, of all people, talk about organized political violence, remember that he was directly involved in what may be the largest act of organized political violence in modern U.S. history: January 6.
Rangappa: Exactly. I’m really surprised that even in the pushback over which side has more political violence, I haven’t heard references to January 6. It almost seems like the whitewashing is successful, and people have effectively memory-holed it. And as you mentioned, that was the definition of political violence. It was done, it was organized, it was done for a political goal, and it was violent. We actually had people convicted of seditious conspiracy, which showed that they were armed and ready to use force in order to thwart the enforcement of the laws of the United States. I think the media should really be focusing on that comparison because this just is not a both-sides kind of thing. And we have this very obvious example of politically motivated violence that not only happened but was pardoned by this administration to the tune of about 1,500 people being let free.
Sargent: Right, exactly. What actually happened is the president of the United States pardoned hundreds and hundreds of people who committed an act of organized political violence against the United States, and in so doing, essentially told Trump voters across the country [that violence is okay]. Now, let’s be clear. The vast majority of them are not violently inclined. But what Trump was doing is allowing the small percentage who are violently inclined know that they will turn a blind eye to any violence carried out on Trump’s behalf, any political violence carried out against the left on his behalf.
Rangappa: Yes, and maybe more specifically, the people who engaged in this violent action on January 6th are now very aware that they have a license, to behave in that way.
Sargent: They absolutely do. So Asha, what could the FBI do to harass liberal groups based on the pretext that these groups contributed in some sense to mass leftist violence in general or the Kirk assassination in particular? What’s the nightmare scenario? Can you walk us through some specifics? What could happen?
Rangappa: Yes. So the less nightmarish option. OK, so just to go do a little history, we know about Hoover’s FBI that investigated groups involved in protected First Amendment activity, right? Because he believed that they were subversive. What came out of the Church Hearings that investigated this in Congress was something called the Attorney General guidelines. These are internal rules, essentially promulgated by the Department of Justice, that govern how the FBI conducts investigations. So under those rules, if they are being followed, the FBI is prohibited from opening an investigation based solely on First Amendment activity. In other words, even if someone is saying things they don’t like, it has to cross the line into criminal behavior. It must cross the line into criminal conspiracy—an agreement to commit a crime—or actual criminal acts. Perhaps incitement, but incitement is a very high bar. Such a high bar that even Jack Smith was not convinced he could charge Donald Trump with it on January 6.
Sargent: I would think that a lot of agents internally are going to want to follow those guidelines, no matter what orders come down, right?
Rangappa: One hundred percent. Under those norms and assuming that those regulations are still in place, there would have to be a specific and articulable fact that an actual violation of federal law has been committed in order to even to open an investigation. And those facts cannot be solely First Amendment-protected activity. So the way the FBI works—typically, in order to prevent a return to anything like what Hoover did—they would not be able to open these kinds of investigations just based on [not liking] an organization.
Sargent: So in the less nightmarish scenario, what would they do to sort of make it look as if they’re doing what Stephen Miller wants, but without really violating rules and laws and norms? Is there some sort of intermediary thing they could kind of go through the motions of doing?
Rangappa: What I think they might try to do—and this is something I’ve thought about for a while—is interesting because he keeps mentioning NGOs. One of the things they’ve done is designate groups like Tren de Aragua, for example, as foreign terrorist organizations. That triggers certain statutes. So, for example, if you donate money or provide assistance to a foreign terrorist organization, you are potentially providing material support to terrorism. So in other words, there may be other hooks that they could use to go after organizations that help immigrants or refugees by saying they are helping terrorists. And I feel like I’ve been hearing echoes of this. So, you know, they would need to find some hook like that.
Sargent: So it would be hard to designate the Center for American Progress as a terrorist organization under this rubric.
Rangappa: It would be impossible. We don’t have a rubric to designate domestic organizations as terrorist organizations. It is a foreign terrorist organization. And so there are specific statutory criteria. It is a determination made by the executive branch, but it is based on certain criteria. We don’t do that for domestic organizations, precisely because of the slippery slope that can happen. Now, the bad news is that these internal guardrails and guidelines are all internal. This isn’t legislated. This isn’t, you know, oversight by Congress. These are attorney general guidelines, meaning they’re promulgated by the attorney general, which means that it’s really up to [Pam Bondi] to make sure that they are correct and that they’re enforced.
Sargent: Some of the Trumpists are actually talking about going after non-governmental organizations. So clearly, they’re looking to cast a pretty wide net in terms of the groups they go after. They want to go after the kind of constellation of liberal groups in DC and other related organizations. What’s the nightmare scenario here?
Rangappa: Yeah. So there are two sub-nightmare scenarios here. One is that they do what Hoover did, which is to do all of this covertly, right? To basically turn these into national security investigations. So they’re secretly investigating these groups, maybe getting information about their membership or finances, and, you know, and where they go with that, I’m not sure. Then, they release it and dox them, or I don’t know, something like that.
The other sub-nightmare scenario is that they do it overtly. In that case, they are actually following these people, conducting physical surveillance, going through their trash, interviewing their neighbors, and basically putting them under a cloud of suspicion. This is sort of the way that they have been operating in a lot of these other cases, like, you know, Adam Schiff and Letitia James... If something is happening covertly, you may not realize you’re being investigated. If you’re being investigated overtly, then you get a lawyer, et cetera. It’s not clear to me that in either of these situations anyone can do anything until they’re actually charged with a crime.
Sargent: Let me ask you this, Asha. Would that require Attorney General Bondi to suspend a bunch of internal guidelines? And is that the thing we should be watching for? In other words, if we see Pam Bondi suspend guidelines, then we’ll know, here it comes, correct?
Rangappa: Well, even if she suspended the guidelines, I don’t see how we would know. It’s an interim thing. I don’t think they would announce it. We would get leaks, perhaps. Or you just have people who are violating them, and there’s no repercussions because, you know, they’re not being reprimanded or investigated internally. I think that would be a good question, actually, for the Senate Judiciary Committee to be asking Kash Patel during the hearing—on whether the attorney general guidelines are still enforced, whether they’re still in effect, and whether they’re still enforced. I mean, that could be a way to bring that out into the open.
You know, it does seem to me that the guidelines have more or less gone out the window just from the kinds of cases that we’ve seen. And in addition to the guidelines—just based on, for example, assuming the executive orders that, for example, Trump put out about Chris Krebs or Miles Taylor. Those are completely unpredicated allegations, right? Those are allegations of treason or whatever. I mean, they’re not based in fact. If the Bureau is actually investigating those, that would be, I think, ipso facto or prima facie evidence that they’re not using the guidelines. And then I think we also see that other guardrails are not being followed either.
I mean, the Justice Department manual has very specific guidelines on when you charge somebody and how harshly you charge them. And we’ve definitely seen in the Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney’s Office that they’ve been overcharging crimes to the point where grand juries are returning no bills. So, I’m just saying that in a normally functioning Justice Department, where at least the rules are being followed—even in the Barr Justice Department—they were most likely still abiding by the Justice Department manual and attorney general guidelines. I don’t think that we would be in as bad a situation as if they dispensed with [these guidelines]. And I think that in order to find out whether they dispensed with it, it’s going to take either leaks, whistleblowers, or Members of Congress are just going to have to ask out, right?
Sargent: I take two things from this. One is that we’re going to need whistleblowers more than ever to let us know what’s going on in there. And two, if we start to see leaks showing that guidelines are being thrown out the window and probes are being launched, we’ll know it’s really on. The second thing is that we all have to hope that Kash Patel is so damn incompetent and such a bumbling fool that he can’t really get that far with any of this stuff.
Folks, if you enjoyed this conversation, please make sure to check out Asha Rangappa’s Substack, the Freedom Academy. Asha, thanks so much for coming on with us.
Rangappa: Thank you again.