“As President Trump’s Lawyers”
By 
Speaking of banana republics:
Serious North Korean s****. The US Attorneys are not the presidents' lawyers. And they should not be "standing against entities… that refuse to put America first" as the President defines it. They are defenders of the Constitution and the laws of this country. What a perversion of justice.
[image or embed]— Brendan Nyhan (@brendannyhan.bsky.social) February 24, 2025 at 12:40 PM
In addition to the obvious, with a differently composed federal judiciary one can imagine a US Attorney being a little less candid about engaging in blatant viewpoint discrimination.
Relatedly, Radley Balko on the Patel/Bongino FBI:
Consequently, Kash Patel could do a lot of damage at the FBI without overhauling the bureau much at all. FBI agents currently have extensive powers to open investigations, interrogate the friends and family of targets, and send informants to manipulate people, all based on nothing more than conduct agents deem to be “radical” or “extreme.” Much of the time, the conduct that attracts suspicion — participating in a protest, converting to Islam, writing for a radical website — is protected by the First Amendment, or at least ought to be. And despite the protests from people like Patel, the brunt of these abuses have fallen disproportionately on civil rights groups, Muslims, and left-leaning activists rather than on militias, white supremacists, or right-wing parent groups. The grim reality is that Patel won’t need to remake the FBI from scratch. He’ll just need to marginally redirect the agency’s focus from unconstitutionally harassing groups the right has traditionally loathed, to unconstitutionally harassing groups that Trump loathes personally.
[…]
As with several of Trump’s nominees, Patel isn’t merely unqualified for this position — his record ought to be disqualifying. The New York Times reported that Patel has vastly overstated his experience in counterterrorism, claiming he was lead prosecutor on the Benghazi investigation when, according to Justice Department officials at the time, his actual duties were researching material and “routing paperwork.” He has associated with far-right extremists, and expressed his support for QAnon cranks. He’s sold Trump-themed merchandise, and pushed a pill he claims counteracts the effects of the Covid vaccine.
During the 2024 campaign, Patel pledged that the second Trump administration would target the president’s enemies, critics, and journalists who report unflattering stories about the administration. “We will go out and find the conspirators — not just in government, but in the media,” he said. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” It’s likely the first time a president has nominated an FBI director who has preemptively vowed to violate the Constitution.
But Biden pardoned Hunter something something.