Trump's potential pick for FBI director haunted by Russiagate, 'security state' loyalties

FBI Director Christopher Wray's 10-year term does not expire until 2027. President-elect Donald Trump is, however, expected to replace him upon taking office. While Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump said is "a very talented guy," might be in contention, the two men whose names keep popping up in discussions of a potential successor are former National Security Council official Kash Patel and former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers.

Establishmentarians have piled on Patel, characterizing him as inexperienced, revenge-driven, and "dangerous."

While Rogers, who specialized in organized crime as a special agent at the FBI's Chicago office, has so far avoided similar abuse, Trump loyalists and critics of the American intelligence community have expressed concerns about his past associations with individuals and censorious groups antagonistic to Trump; his historic support for surveillance programs; and the role he apparently played in pushing Russiagate.

Former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon asked Mike Benz, the executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, this week why the "MAGA right" would be "particularly upset about a guy like Mike Rogers, who in normal times would be looked at as a fine, center-right candidate put up by a Romney-type Republican administration?"

'You can't really have a compromised candidate.'

Benz, keen to see Patel nominated, suggested that Rogers' involvement with the Atlantic Council — "probably the number-one apex predator in the entire censorship industry" — and his help advancing Russiagate were disqualifying.

"The relationship between the Justice Department and the FBI is the same relationship that's shared between the U.S. State Department and the CIA. They need to be constantly in sync," said Benz.

"You can't really have a compromised candidate where one person supports the president and the other person is looking to put a knife in the president's back. That is simply untenable when you're dealing with the kind of special, compartmentalized operations that happen at the FBI level."

The Daily Caller reported that Rogers is not only a member of the Aspen Cybersecurity Institute, a left-leaning think tank, but also served as an adviser to the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy initiative, spearheaded by a former foreign policy adviser to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and aimed at tackling supposed Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The ASD launched the Hamilton 68 Dashboard in 2017 to monitor hundreds of then-Twitter accounts allegedly linked to Russian influence efforts online — a project likened by investigative reporter Matt Taibbi to "digital McCarthyism that was repeatedly used by establishment media publications as a source to push the Russian influence and interference narratives that Democrats, in turn, exploited during Trump's first term."

According to Taibbi, when Twitter executives attempted to recreate the group's list of accounts, they determined that the accounts were "neither strongly Russia nor strongly bots," and indicated that "there is no evidence to support their statements that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops."

When pressed for comment, Rogers' spokesman Chris Gustafon said in a statement to the Caller, "President-elect Trump is once again assembling a fantastic administration to help the American people and Make America Great Again."

Wikileaks, which has been highly critical of Rogers as an FBI director aspirant, suggested that the ASD was a "central player in efforts to tie President Donald Trump and his supporters to Russian interference in the 2016 election" and that the Hamilton 68 Dashboard's "true purpose appeared to be casting suspicion on Trump supporters and reinforcing claims that his presidency was illegitimate."

Wikileaks also highlighted how in 2018, Rogers advocated for the suppression of a Republican memo critical of the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign.

Rogers told NPR at the time the memo should not be released because

you're only going to get a small part of the picture. And so what they're purportedly alleging is going to come out in the memo today is that there was some misconduct on behalf of FBI agents and some DOJ officials, lawyers at the Department of Justice, in the application for something called the FISA, which is the secret court that does counterintelligence, espionage cases, terrorism cases, where it needs to be in a classified setting.

Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald, responding to a video of Rogers apparently joking with Hunter Biden "intel" letter signatory Michael Hayden about having Edward Snowden assassinated, tweeted, "There's literally no worse appointment possible than choosing Mike Rogers for FBI Director, or for any government position. He's the single most devoted loyalist to the US Security State and all of its multi-faceted abuses. It doesn't get worse than Mike Rogers."

While Rogers' past remarks and associations may serve as red flags for the president-elect, Trump endorsed him in March for his unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan — months after the former congressman and defense lobbyist criticized the Biden Justice Department's "war" against Trump.

Patel endorsed Rogers for Senate in April, saying he would "hold the FBI and DOJ accountable."

"I am a big fan of Mike Rogers, and should there be an opening [for FBI director], he would be my choice," said Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R).

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, "Mike Rogers is a terrific guy. I don't know Kash Patel."

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