Book Review: "Government Gangsters" by Kash Patel
Is the Deep State Real?
Overall Rating: 2.75/5.0
As anyone following the news is aware, most of Trump's cabinet nominees following his election win are generating a great deal of controversy. Kash Patel, Trump's nominee for FBI Director, is one such nominee. The controversy revolves around the fact that those who oppose his nomination feel that Patel is insufficiently experienced, too blindly loyal to Trump, too likely to politicize the FBI to target Trump's political opponents unfairly, and too bought into QAnon.
To better assess the controversy, I decided that a good starting point would be to hear what Patel has to say for himself in his book Government Gangsters.
Overview of Contents
Government Gangsters is, essentially, Patel's memoirs of his experience working with the Trump administration, beginning with the Russiagate investigations through to his appointment to the board of Trump's Truth Social media company.
Patel begins by briefly describing his modest origins in Queens and Long Island, New York, his decision to become a lawyer, and his early work as a public defender in Florida, defending those accused in the most unsavory cases that others did not want to touch. The story quickly moves on to his early days working for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice circa 2014 and then to his work on counter-terrorism for the House Intelligence Committee. Patel quickly covers this background since his career only really begins to get remarkable, and his philosophies regarding the deep state only really begin to cement beginning with his work with Devin Nunes, which led to his investigations of corruption in the Russiagate controversy.
During his investigation into Russiagate, Patel concluded that considerable corruption was at play involving the very highest levels of government. Patel considers it to have been the greatest abuse of power in American history.
Patel spends considerable time detailing Russiagate, including the NSA's spying on the Trump campaign and the failure of these investigations to turn up any evidence that Trump had colluded with Russia. Along the way, Patel describes the maleficence of those hellbent on obstructing Trump's agenda nearly everywhere they could and intent on removing him from office or, failing that, at least tarnishing his reputation after he left office.
Patel spells out the primary mechanisms involved:
Fabrication of evidence to obtain FISA warrants to spy on Trump;
Wrongly classifying material that worked in favor of showing Trump’s innocence so that it could not be brought to light;
Selectively leaking material that seemed to work against Trump but not enough so that the public could make up their own mind and instead had to rely on deep state members and left-biased media to guide them to desired anti-Trump conclusions;
Using the Federal bureaucracy to usurp power that legally belongs to the President, especially as head of the military, to stack the bureaucracy against Trump and to stall the implementation of an agenda the voters had given him a mandate to implement.
The book ends with:
a discussion of January 6,
what Patel sees as the way forward to dismantle the deep state,
an enemies list, and
a final Appendix containing what Patel considers material key to making his case, such as the Nunes memo.
The Book's Strengths
Patel's book has been judiciously edited and is relatively short, coming in at 8 hours of playing time on Audible. Patel quickly moves through the less interesting early parts of his career to focus on the really interesting stuff: his experiences with and philosophy surrounding the deep state. Here, Patel concisely presents a clear and down-to-earth outline. Contrary to accusations, it is nowhere near QAnon conspiracy thinking. The underlying mechanisms are well spelled out and believable: The Federal bureaucracy is too big; it is firmly ideologically slanted toward the left; the bias manifests itself in day-to-day decisions; the media, which shares the same ideological bias, co-operates and is rarely critical of the deep state while being hyper-critical of Trump.
Not only does Patel describe the abuses that have happened, but he also spells out very specific measures to reform things. An example of this is reform of the FISA court. The FISA court is the one that can grant warrants for the NSA to spy on US citizens. It was not judicious, however, and nearly always granted a warrant. Patel identifies key problems as short one-month appointments of judges with no prior experience, a failure to record proceedings, and the absence of any lawyers present to make the case against the warrant on behalf of those who would be spied on. Another example where Patel proposes sensible reform is moving trials in which there is a strong political component generally out of Washington, DC, where things are extremely biased toward the left.
The Book's Weaknesses
Patel's background is that of a lawyer. As demonstrated by the fact that the book is never critical of Trump, Patel is fiercely loyal to Trump. Patel also made it clear that, at the time of writing, he was looking forward to future work with Trump. Patel's presentation is, thus, very much that of someone who can, effectively, be considered to be one of Trump's many lawyers.
As lawyers do, Patel does not say anything against his effective client. He does not present any evidence that would work against Trump unless it is easy to immediately knock it down and serve as a demonstration of Trump's unfair treatment. There is certainly no nuance presented. For example, although Patel points out that the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page was ultimately determined to be one that should not have been granted, he does not mention that the same report concluded the underlying motivation was not political. Although many will find this hard to believe, some will think it absurd, the omission does highlight that the book is not striving to be completely objective.
Similarly, although I did not follow the blow-by-blow of politics before 2020 and, thus, cannot spell out exactly where Patel is right and where he is wrong regarding Russiagate, since I have only heard one side of the story. Beginning in 2020, however, I was a full-fledged news/political junkie so feel better qualified to weigh in. Thus, when Patel discussed January 6, I found his attempt to defend the President particularly weak. Yes, Trump ordered work to begin on a transition of power to Biden before January 6. No, that is not inconsistent with Trump not wanting to relinquish office. After all, if he had not ordered a transition to begin, would that not just have tipped his hand before he was ready?
Did Trump's words on January 6 for protesters to make their way "peacefully" to the Capitol prove that that was what he really wanted? Anyone who has ever led people knows that generally telling people something once is not enough. Indeed, many, including myself, could sense before that day that violence was inevitable. The President of the United States and those around him were surely also able to read the situation too. So why not stronger and multiple emphases on multiple occasions that he did not support violence? Why not immediate tweeting and public announcements to stop once rioting had begun? Why a three-hour delay instead?
Conclusion
Patel's book coherently argues that a deep state exists in the United States. Far from being off in QAnon-land, the mechanisms by which it operates now seem established well beyond conspiracy theory. Patel makes many reasonable suggestions about what to do about it.
The book should also dismiss notions that Patel has too little experience to be FBI Director. As for being too blindly loyal to Trump, here the waters are a little murkier. Patel is indeed fiercely loyal to Trump. The real question is, is Patel worse than anyone else seeking appointment and who knows which side the bread is buttered on? The enemies list is concerning, but arguably, it makes the deep state a concrete concept instead of abstract figures lurking in the shadows.
When Patel argues that Trump should have stronger practical domination as executive he is on solid legal ground. A President who has made his agenda clear has been given a mandate by the people. Opposing it, where the President is clearly legally in charge, is opposing the people. Nevertheless, Patel does not address the concern that a right-leaning government will just replace a bureaucracy and justice system stacked in favor of the left with one stacked in favor of the right instead of with a fair one.
Overall, the book is about as objective as you would expect from a lawyer effectively representing Trump. Sometimes it is right, and sometimes it is misleading by omission. This is the main reason I can only give it 2.75/5.0.
Finally, I would have liked to see a deeper discussion of how the deep state's existence is an inevitable consequence of leftist domination of academia in conjunction with long-term leftist strategies of institutional dominance à la Marcuse, Gramsci, and others.