Enemies lists have a not-very-positive connotation in American political history, something most associated with Richard Nixon, whose Enemies list was released by the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973.
Now, the concept has been revived, with Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, reportedly having such a list himself. Patel, a former staffer for Trump-backing then-Rep. Devin Nunes, is considered to be a Trump loyalist above all. Per The New Republic, the list was published in Patel’s own book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for our Democracy, and it includes both Republicans and Democrats. The list includes 60 people.
The Republicans include former Attorney General William Barr, who refused to go along with Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies, and Christopher Wray, the Trump-appointed current FBI director and the man Patel would replace. Also included is a long list of Republicans, from John Bolton to Cassidy Hutchinson, who served in the first Trump Administration but later broke with it.
Now, one columnist has come up with a potential reaction to Patel’s list, which also includes Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and President Biden himself.
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New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has a solution: President Biden, before he leaves office, should issue blanket pardons for everyone on Patel’s list, to keep them out of legal jeopardy.
From The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg: ‘If Anyone Can Save the Democrats, It’s Ben Wikler’
“This combination of focused pragmatism and deep, genuine optimism is part of what makes Wikler the obvious candidate to rebuild a broken and demoralized Democratic Party.” pic.twitter.com/YjhyoaHMRd
— Dan Shafer (@DanRShafer) December 4, 2024
Describing Patel as “a thuggish lackey who has spent years fantasizing about taking revenge on Trump’s enemies,” Goldberg notes that Biden’s team is weighing whether to issue blanket pardons to those who he fears Trump will go after. Such pardons would bee irregular, since virtually none of the figures on Patel’s list have been charged with, or even plausibly accused of a crime.
“Though Biden is not much of a communicator, he could give a speech laying out the well-founded fears that Patel may try to harass the people on his list with spurious investigations,” Goldberg writes. “In addition to justifying sweeping pardons, such a speech could prompt a useful nationwide discussion about what it would mean to put a man like Patel in charge of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency.”
Doing so would follow Biden’s controversial decision to pardon his son Hunter last week, and risk “emboldening” Trump in his new term. But as Goldberg notes, Trump doesn’t need any additional emboldening.
“The only reason for Trump to choose a person like Patel to lead the F.B.I. is to bend it to his will. Democrats can’t arrest that process through fealty to norms that are about to be obliterated. Yes, pardons will give Republicans a cable news talking point. The question is whether denying them that talking point is worth letting Patel ruin people’s lives on Trump’s behalf,” Goldberg writes.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
