John Bolton compares Kash Patel to Stalin’s right-hand man after Trump’s FBI nomination

Former national security adviser John Bolton called for the Senate to reject President-elect Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel for FBI director, even comparing the move to Josef Stalin’s reign of terror.

Bolton, who served during the first Trump administration, provided a statement about the pick to NBC News. “Meet the Press” anchor Kristin Welker shared the comment in a post on X Sunday morning.

“Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty [sic] Beria,” the statement read. “Fortunately, the FBI is not the NKVD [People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs].”

“The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0,” Bolton added.

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Bolton’s statement referenced Lavrentiy Beria, who was the head of the Soviet secret police under Stalin. Beria is one of the most infamous figures in Russian history, having organized and implemented widespread surveillance, repression, ethnic purges and terror during Stalin’s rule.

The prospect of an outsider being placed in charge of the FBI sent shockwaves across Washington over the weekend. The nomination was announced on Saturday night by Trump, who called Patel a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter.”

During the first Trump administration, Patel was the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. He is seen as a Trump loyalist who will implement drastic reforms within the FBI if confirmed.

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Patel said in a September interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show,” that he would “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen the next day as a museum of the deep state.” He also penned a book called “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.”

Patel is not the first Trump pick that Bolton has blasted. During a “Meet the Press NOW” episode in November, Bolton said Trump’s now-withdrawn nomination of Matt Gaetz to U.S. attorney general was “the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history.” 

“The Senate’s new leadership should tell the president-elect that he is endangering Republican senators by forcing a vote in favor of Gaetz’s nomination. The leadership should insist that this nomination be withdrawn,” Bolton said at the time.