CIA Director Gina Haspel threatened to step down in early December after President Trump devised a hasty plan to install loyalist Kash Patel, a former assistant to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), As her deputy, according to three senior government officials with direct knowledge of the matter.
Why it matters: The revelation baffled national security officials and nearly blew up the leadership of the world’s most powerful spy agency. Only a series of coincidences – and last-minute interventions from Vice President Mike Pence and White House adviser Pat Cipollone – stopped it.
Behind the scenes: Trump had spent his senior year in the office worrying about Haspel. Some of the president’s hardcore allies, including Fox Business presenter Maria Bartiromo, publicly raised doubts about Haspel.
- He began to distrust her and instead wanted a loyal ally at the top of the CIA. But she wasn’t the only national security officer the president wanted. Six days after the election, he fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
- He replaced Esper with Chris Miller, the counter-terrorism chief, and then astonished the hands of national security by appointing Patel as Miller’s chief of staff. Patel had no military experience and was widely viewed as a political mercenary bent on punishing the president’s alleged Deep State enemies.
- But Trump told confidants he had bigger plans for Patel: He would force CIA Deputy Director Vaughn Bishop, replace him with Patel, and if Haspel quit in protest, Patel or another loyalist would lead the CIA.
Patel found his favor with Trump playing a central role in Republican attempts to thwart Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He was the lead author of a memo in which Nunes accused the Justice Department and the FBI of abusing surveillance laws as part of a politically motivated attempt to take down Trump. An inspector general later confirmed some of the Republican criticisms of the Russia investigation.
- Trump had also become convinced that there are still all kinds of classified documents lying around in the CIA that would harm his enemies – Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director John Brennan and others.
- Trump viewed Patel as someone he could trust to do as he asked, without defiantly, walking slowly, questioning his judgment, or asking too many nasty questions.
- Patel served for four months as chief deputy to Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, was a DOJ terrorism prosecutor, served on Trump’s National Security Council, served on Joint Special Operations Command, and served as senior House Intelligence officer Committee.
Patel was traveling in Asia with Acting Secretary of Defense Miller when Trump abruptly returned him to Washington on Dec. 8.
- The Pentagon at the time declined to answer questions about why Patel was being recalled. But given the tensions running through the building after Trump replaced top officials with loyalists, this sparked feverish speculation among high-ranking Pentagon staff.
- Patel had to connect via multiple commercial flights to get back quickly. Meanwhile, Trump ordered White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to tell Haspel that he was firing Bishop and replacing him with Patel.
Trump intended to name Patel deputy director of the CIA on Dec. 11 – in fact, the paperwork had already been prepared to formalize Patel’s appointment. That same day, Haspel decided for the first time in weeks to attend the president’s daily intelligence briefing.
- Reports that she was on the ropes had been wandering for weeks and she was sending away from the West Wing – a COVID hot zone. During the briefing that day, Haspel deftly reminded Trump of what had initially impressed him: as Trump often put it, she was tough and good at killing terrorists.
- After the briefing ended and Haspel left the room, Trump asked a small group of his senior aides what they thought of Haspel. Pence put up a full-fledged defense, calling the CIA director a patriot, praising her work achievements, and trying to reassure Trump that she had his back. Cipollone had also repeatedly defended Haspel to the president.
Trump abruptly changed courseand decided to call off the plan to install Patel. But there was one problem: just down the hall in the chief of staff’s office, Meadows had already told Haspel that Patel would take over the bishop’s job.
- Haspel responded with the fierce aggression she was known for. She said she would not accept it, and that she would step down before Patel could take a position as her deputy.
- Meadows had presented it as a fait accompli, but this was not a decision Haspel would make if he lay down. And now Trump had changed his mind. Meadows had to swallow his pride and reverse the order.
Driving the news: On Friday, Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, a prominent conspiracy theorist and attorney Sidney Powell who quashed the election, visited Trump for his final Friday afternoon in the Oval Office.
- Washington Post photographer Jabin Botsford snapped a photo of Lindell’s notes before entering the West Wing.
- One of the cushion entrepreneur’s prescriptions for the President was the glaring phrase, “Move Kash Patel to CIA acting.”
What they say: Patel declined to comment on the president’s plan in early December, but told Axios, “I want to say on the record that I’ve never met, talked to, seen, texted, or communicated with Mike Lindell.”