Bannon: Kash Patel Will Absolutely Investigate the People Named in His Book

A tough break for those hoping that the likely next FBI director may moderate if confirmed.

Steve Bannon in October 2022. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

DONALD TRUMP’S NOMINEE FOR FBI DIRECTOR, Kash Patel, is dead serious when it comes to investigating the political enemies who he listed in his book Government Gangsters, according to Trump’s on-again-off-again adviser Steve Bannon.

“Kash didn’t try to hide the football. Steve Bannon didn’t try,” Bannon asserted, speaking in the third person during a one-on-one interview with The Bulwark following his speech to Americafest, a yearly gathering of MAGA diehards hosted by Turning Point USA.

“He made a fucking movie that’s called Government Gangsters and the first guy is Merrick Garland, okay. And Lisa Monaco’s in there, who the nation doesn’t know—we’re trying to make these people famous. So no. First of all, it has to happen. Number two, it’s going to happen.”

Among those who would have a clear understanding of Patel’s intentions, Bannon stands high up on the list. He worked with Patel on the documentary that accompanied Patel’s book. He has also routinely hosted Patel on his podcast. His comments serve as a stark contrast to how congressional Republicans have talked up Patel’s nomination by portraying him more as a force of reform at the FBI. Patel will need fifty votes in the Senate in order to be confirmed.

Bannon’s remarks, delivered during a wide-ranging interview, came after I expressed concern that Patel might use the powers of the FBI to target political foes in the shadows without accountability. Bannon asserted that it shouldn’t be concerning, not because Patel would moderate his desire to ensnare political foes of President Trump but because he would do so right out in the open.

“Transparency and sunlight is our friend,” Bannon said before ruminating on the importance of Patel’s poorly written but politically potent book.

“I would say Kash’s book is more typing than writing, okay,” Bannon quipped. “It’s not a literary thing. But when you see it, it’s so in your face and at the end he lists on eight pages people from the Deep State that need to be investigated. . . . So I think it’s pretty transparent.”

Bannon was adamant that Patel’s forthcoming investigations would not be about political revenge but, rather, an important cleansing of institutions that Trump and the MAGA movement believe are fundamentally broken. Bannon himself served a four-month sentence in the federal correctional institution in Danbury, Connecticut for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“These investigations and all that, it’s not for personal retribution. I would be the person then at the forefront since I spent four months in a federal prison and I could care less. [Prison] actually was very empowering for me,” he said. “We can never allow again to happen what happened. The debanking, the deplatforming, the coming after President Trump—you have to get to the bottom of it.”

Among the investigations Bannon specifically expected from Patel were ones that look into the supposed “fedsurrection” on January 6th (a conspiracy theory that holds that the FBI was behind the attack on the Capitol, which I covered back in 2023) and the purported “vast criminal conspiracy” against President-elect Trump. A recent watchdog report found that there were 26 FBI informants—and no undercover employees—at the Capitol on January 6th. None was authorized to enter the building or otherwise break the law.

“I think there will be a massive investigation. The vast criminal conspiracy, including the media’s—what was it, Andrew Weissmann and all those FBI guys that work on MSNBC—I think there will be big investigations into all these people, I just do. I think there is going to be a huge investigation, I believe, into 2020. I think it’s going to be a huge investigation on January 6th, the fedsurrection, I think it’s going to be a huge investigation about the vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump.”