Confirmation Hearing for FBI Director: Lindsey Graham's Exchange With Kash Patel Reminds Us How Corrrupt the FBI Has Become

While Democrats are using Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing for FBI Director to still rant and rave about Jan. 6, at least one Republican used his time to illustrate why so many people no longer trust the Bureau.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) brought up Patel’s work investigating FBI operation Crossfire Hurricane, an effort aimed at promoting the hoax that President Donald Trump collaborated with the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Patel was instrumental in exposing the hoax and the weaponization of the FBI against Trump. Graham brought up a text message exchange between former agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in which they showed anti-Trump bias.

“Is it fair to say that the people in charge of investigating Crossfire Hurricane hated Trump’s guts?” Graham asked.

The conversation turned to former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was the subject of surveillance during the 2016 race. “Do you know that the FBI secured warrants against him on four different occasions?” Graham asked.

Patel answered yes. Graham continued, asking if Patel knew that the Bureau relied on false information from the Steele Dossier to obtain the FISA warrant used to justify their spying on a member of the Trump campaign.

“Was it you that were able to find out that the Steele dossier was a bunch of crap?” Graham asked.

Patel answered: “Yes, Senator. We followed the money, and we exposed the fraud.”

Special counsel John Durham investigated the origins of Crossfire Hurricane during Trump’s first term. He found serious issues with the FBI’s conduct, including confirmation bias and other problems. One of the agents involved was later convicted for falsifying an email used in the FISA application to spy on Carter Page.

Graham then brought up Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst, who was a sub-source for the debunked Steele Dossier that contained a series of erroneous accusations against Trump. He was later interviewed by the FBI in 2017 to verify the content in the dossier. The analyst later faced charges in 2021 of lying to the Bureau. He was later acquitted in October 2022.

“Are you aware that the FBI had volumes of information that the Steele dossier was a bunch of bullsh*t and nobody ever told anybody at the top?” Graham asked.

Patel replied, “I am, sir.”

The senator noted that without Crossfire Hurricane, Patel would not be Trump’s nominee.

My friends on the other side, like pulling teeth. The Horowitz investigation, the Inspector General labeled this fraudulent at its core, mismanaged at its core, running stop signs. At every turn, they went forward when they should have stopped. The Durham report said it was obviously politically motivated. FBI agents were telling anybody and everybody that would listen, This is not reliable, this is not trustworthy, but they plowed on. Because of you and [former Rep.] Trey Gowdy and others, we now know about this.

The lawmaker also referred to the Bureau being used to cast doubt on the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop story, claiming it was Russian disinformation.

Lindsey Graham's full line of questioning of Kash Patel puts the FBI's corruption on FULL DISPLAY!

🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/DZrnxrN4nY— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 30, 2025

Graham’s line of questioning seemed intended to highlight the rampant corruption and politicization in the FBI over the past decade – which is important given the fact that trust in the Bureau has plummeted.

While Democrats seek to use Patel’s statements about the J6ers against him, Graham and other Republicans are focused on the job for which Patel is interviewing while showing how the left has weaponized the Bureau against its political opponents.

I posted this yesterday on a thread about The Washington Post crying that Trump is weaponizing government:

Really? Trump is stretching laws to make the Federal Government more political? That is extremely rich coming from the Washington Post. Back in January of 2017 (as Trump was preparing to take office in less than two weeks) the Washington Post prints a David Ignatius article using leaked data about Flynn phone calls (Leaked by Office of Net Assessment (ONA) Director COL James Baker)

Excerpt from the Washington Post Article: 
What discussions has the Trump team had with Russian officials about future relations? Trump said Wednesday that his relationship with President Vladimir Putin is “an asset, not a liability.” Fair enough, but until he’s president, Trump needs to let Obama manage U.S.-Russia policy.    

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security adviser, cultivates close Russian contacts. He has appeared on Russia Today and received a speaking fee from the cable network, which was described in last week’s unclassified intelligence briefing on Russian hacking as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”    

According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking.    

What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States.    

Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.   

  As an aside, ONA Director COL Baker had lunch regularly with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius. Baker is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn’s calls to Ignatius.”

As an aside, there was a whistleblower at the Pentagon ONA under COL James Baker named Adam Lovinger (a good summary can be found at this article in the Washington Times titled: Adam Lovinger, Pentagon analyst, lost security clearance after Stefan Halper complaints who had four charges filed against him by his boss Col. James Baker. The NCIS report on Lovinger’s conduct finds no reason for Whistleblower to be fired, but the word “not” is excluded in the documentation.   

In the fall of 2016, Adam Lovinger went to his bosses, pointing out that large sums of money were being spent on suspicious things, specifically, large sums of money in the area of nearly half a million dollars being sent to Stefan Halper, an infamous figure in the Russiagate Hoax who is famous for four key things in the Russiagate Hoax:

Stefan Halper approached Carter Page in the Spring of 2016 (when it appeared Trump was going to get nominated as the party candidate) to try to plant the seeds to get Page set up to be in a position to be investigated. Page testified to this.
Stefan Halper approached George Papadopoulos in the Spring of 2016 (when it appeared Trump was going to get nominated as the party candidate) to try to plant the seeds to set Papadopoulos up to be in a position to be investigated. Papadopoulos testified to this.
Stefan Halper was the one who started the rumor about Flynn being a Russian asset and having an affair with a Russian woman named Svetlana Lokhova who he met for the first time at a conference in Cambridge in February of 2014, and then attended a banquet in Moscow in December 2015 (for the 10th anniversary of the founding of RT (Russia Television) and was seated next to Vladimir Putin at that banquet. After the 2014 banquet in Cambridge, the story is that Halper became so alarmed by Flynn's close association with a Russian woman that a Halper associate expressed concerns to American authorities that Flynn may have been compromised by Russian intelligence.”
Stefan Halper was the one who went, at the last minute to the FBI on August 11, 2016, the day after FBI opens counterintelligence cases on Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Manafort with "information" about General Flynn being a Russian asset, and the FBI adds Flynn's name, handwritten, at the very end of the list of people to investigate. This is the basis for getting the FISA on Flynn.

According to Flynn’s attorney at that time (who found the Brady material that torpedoed the government case) Sidney Powell in an interview by Dan Bongino aired on 5/22/2020, noted that Flynn and COL Baker were very close, and met behind closed doors on a regular basis.  So Baker knew what Flynn knew. About everything.

And he knew how dangerous that knowledge Flynn had was.  

As a result of his reporting this mysterious money being sent to Stefan Helper (which was Lovinger's job to know) Lovinger's Security privileges were stripped from him on 5/1/2017 requiring him to leave the NSC and go back to the Pentagon doing a lower level job. Baker then reclassified the job Lovinger was then working at to have requirements that Lovinger did not meet.

So, when I read all this, with the POS David Ignatius knee-deep in this effort to take out Flynn, and the Washington Post in to their knees as well, it makes me want to puke.

And let's not forget the article they published in the Washington Post “FBI reviewed Flynn’s calls with Russian ambassador but found nothing illicit” by Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller which was intended to put Flynn at ease for his setup the next day on 1/24/2017 when Strzok and Pienta went unannounced to the White House to set him up, the question being asked beforehand by Bill Priestap (in a handwritten note) "What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" This article from the Washington Post is thought by Dan Bongino to be a pattern of direct media collusion to put the candidate at ease for the interview the next day.

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