Will Kash Patel turn out to be the next J. Edgar Hoover?

Will Kash Patel turn out to be the next J. Edgar Hoover?
Trump's FBI pick could be a throwback to America's legendary secret policeman, who ran the FBI for nearly 50 years

By James Thornton Harris
Published February 16, 2025 11:00AM (EST)


(Salon) Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI chief, has said he wants to dismantle the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the agency’s concrete fortress headquarters in Washington, and disperse the 7,000 employees who work there to offices around the country.

Patel could well succeed in demolishing the landmark building named for the FBI’s founding director. It was opened in 1974 and is now considered obsolescent; a replacement site in Maryland has already been chosen. But many of the incoming director’s critics worry that Patel worry he may return to the practices of the Hoover era, including unauthorized surveillance operations, massive collection of personal data and harassment of dissidents, activists and perceived political enemies.

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But his legacy is quite different today. Most historians now regard Hoover as a racist and a misogynist. He belonged to an openly white supremacist fraternity as a law student at George Washington University; it is perhaps no accident that the FBI remained 99% white and all male until Hoover’s death in 1972. He fiercely guarded his autonomy, serving under seven presidents, none of whom dared fire him — perhaps because they feared what was in his voluminous files. He compiled enormous troves of information on senators, members of Congress and other public figures, and curried favor with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, among others, by sharing gossip about their political rivals. On occasion, he conducted secret wiretapping or surveillance for his bosses.

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In an interview with The New York Times, Yale professor Beverly Gage, author of the acclaimed 2023 Hoover biography "G-Man," said the founding director would have been "appalled" at Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel. Gage said she found the most frightening aspect to be Patel’s sycophancy to Trump. "He’s making no secret that he will use the bureau to punish Mr. Trump’s enemies," Gage said.

The obvious question here is how far Patel is willing to go. Will he ignore agency guidelines and seek to persecute citizens that Trump considers enemies? ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/02/16/will-kash-patel-turn-out-to-be-the-next-j-edgar-hoover/