FBI director Kash Patel has declared that Donald Trump’s retribution campaign is only just getting started, vowing that “many” indictments against the president’s political enemies would come by the end of the year.
Days after former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were charged by Trump’s Justice Department, Patel said that the bureau was looking at criminal leads against numerous other past administration officials, “and we’re not going to stop until every single one of those is fully exposed.”
“We are looking at so many different leads by those who were in positions of power,” he told conservative network Real America’s Voice.
“These indictments that you’ve seen and the ones that you’re going to see coming up in the near future are just the beginning… Look at the work the men and women of the FBI have done so far in these seven, eight months—and just imagine what we’re going to do come the year end.”
Patel’s warning was issued moments after he attended an Oval Office press conference with the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which Trump made it clear he wanted the pair to keep going after people who had pursued him over the years.
The president also cited a list of people he wanted to target, including Democrat Senator Adam Schiff (who helped lead the first impeachment against Trump); former government attorney Andrew Weissman (who was the lead counsel for the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election) and former deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco (who oversaw Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, his handling of classified documents, and the January 6th attack on the Capitol).
“I hope they’re looking at political crime, because there’s never been so much political crime against a political opponent as to what I had to go through,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Patel’s comments come as Trump’s DOJ also began presenting evidence this week to a grand jury against his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, whose home was raided by the FBI earlier this year for allegedly transmitting classified documents.
The comments were notable because Patel claimed under oath during his Senate confirmation hearing that “there will be no politicization at the FBI; there will be no retributive actions taken”—a statement that was met with deep skepticism by Democrats on the committee at the time.
The MAGA acolyte also explicitly denied having an “enemies list” that Senators referenced from his 2023 book, which contains a lengthy appendix of former government officials he says are part of the so-called “deep state.”
“The only thing that will matter if I’m confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience to the Constitution and a singular standard of justice,” Patel said during the January hearing.
This week, however, the FBI director was singing a different tune, singling out “Comey and his band of miscreants” for criticizing Trump’s weaponization of the justice system, “when they’re the ones that authored and penned the biggest US criminal conspiracy in US history, which was Russiagate.”
Comey, who has long been critical of the president, pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied to Congress, which center around a testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020.
The charges came shortly after Trump posted a note to Attorney General Pam Bondi on his Truth Social platform, demanding an indictment and complaining about the then top prosecutor overseeing the Comey case, Erik Siebert.
After pushing out Siebert, the president last month appointed former beauty pageant contestant Lindsey Halligan, his former personal lawyer, as the top federal prosecutor in Virginia’s eastern district to bring charges against the former FBI director.
Last week, James, who successfully sued Trump for civil fraud, was also charged by the Department of Justice for alleged bank fraud and lying to a financial institution.
She has also denied the allegations.
“We see powerful voices trying to silence truth, punish dissent, and, yes, weaponize justice for political gain,” James told supporters on Sunday, adding that she would not “break” or “bend.”
“This, my friends, is a defining moment in our history. Let us stand together to defend our rights, to protect every safeguard, every institution, every immigrant, every norm, and every rule of law.”
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