Kash Patel Says His Life's In Danger Because He's In FBI Affidavit

Mary Papenfuss
Updated ·2 min read
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Fierce Donald Trump ally Kash Patel is claiming his life is now in danger because his name appears in the heavily redacted affidavit released Friday supporting the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.

“Brown Lives Matter,” a clearly furious Patel said in a statement late Friday.

In a message posted on Truth Social, Patel called it a “vicious attack from DOJ/FBI who intentionally jeopardized my safety by un-redacting my name in the most reviewed search warrant in the history of the United States.”

The “DOJ is on the line for my security with their dangerous actions,” Patel added. “These gangsters are on notice.”

But Patel, a former top Pentagon staffer, had already placed himself very publicly in the middle of the documents issue. He quickly defended the former president after FBI agents seized several boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago, including classified and even top-secret information.

Patel and the former president have insisted in interviews that Trump had a “standing order” that documents removed from the White House were “declassified.”

Patel claimed in an interview with Breitbart that he was “there with Trump when he said, ‘We are declassifying this information.’”

But no written evidence has been presented to support that. In addition, experts say Trump had to follow a process to declassify documents, and share his decision so other officials would know. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence of that.

Other White House officials have said they never heard of such an order.

Patel appears in a footnote in the affidavit referring to his claim to Breitbart.

The footnote quotes the Breitbart article that Patel “characterized as ‘misleading’” that “classified material is among records that POTUS provided” to the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago.

The claim of widespread declassification was not mentioned in Trump’s latest motion to have a “special master” review the seized documents to determine if any might have been somehow protected by executive privilege.

A letter from Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran included in the affidavit suggests Trump had absolute declassification authority, but it does not state that Trump actually declassified any of the documents.

Former Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said Friday on MSNBC that while Patel may not be in added danger from death since the release of the affidavit, the document does indicate he could be at legal risk (see the video below).

He is “clearly in the crosshairs,” said Weissmann, noting that the affidavit apparently does not refer to any “declassified” documents.

Patel “really needs to be getting a lawyer,” said Weissmann.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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