Below is a Table that provides important statements made by Kash Patel about the Justice Department’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election – and compares those statements with evidence in the public record.
By way of background, Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, has claimed that he has valuable experience in uncovering and calling out wrongdoing by the FBI and Justice Department in the Russia investigation. His claim is based, in part, on the “Nunes Memo,” a document Patel helped produce in 2018 for his boss at the time, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. The memo purported to identify mistakes made by government officials in obtaining Carter Page FISA warrant applications. However, as a recent exposition by the New York Times explained:
“An inspector general later concluded that the F.B.I. had botched the [Carter Page] FISA applications in myriad ways, but most of the flaws it identified were not in the Nunes memo. And many of the flaws Mr. Patel claimed to exist turned out to be false or misleading when the underlying materials became public.”
But that is only part of the problem. Many of Patel’s claims about the Russia investigation are false and inconsistent with the multi-volume reports by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee (see especially volume 5) and with the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report.
The analysis required to show how the truth gets twisted often involves fine parsing. However, some examples speak for themselves as evidenced in the Table below (also available as a PDF).
Kash Patel Statements on 2016 Russia Investigation by Just Security on Scribd