'Makes it meaningful': Analyst flags 'tell' that signals Kash Patel is in real trouble
FBI Director Kash Patel is starting to face real danger signs that his career is in jeopardy, MS NOW correspondent Ken Dilanian told anchor Katy Tur — and it's the fact that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is now getting involved in investigating the reports of his personal use of private planes and ordering of fancy cars with public money.
Tur noted that in April, Grassley defended Patel strongly, saying, "I've never had an FBI director cooperate with me as much as Kash Patel has cooperated with me on my request for information, my request for documents." And it's likely that Grassley never intended his letter demanding answers from Patel to go public.
That said, she continued, "If they are sharing this with you, do you think it is one step closer to their sharing the same information, perhaps with the receipts we also desperately want to see with Senator Grassley?"
Dilanian corrected Tur, noting, "To be clear, Chuck Grassley's office did not share this letter with me. I'm not sure they intended this letter to be made public. In fact, they took steps to keep it secret, which is interesting because normally these kinds of requests are made public."
That said, he continued, Grassley "is a really interesting figure" because he has a history of bipartisan investigations of corruption, but in recent years he has become much more of a cheerleader for Trump, so "it was surprising to see these actually asking critical questions here ... whether he'll actually follow through and demand these documents and then make them public after or have a hearing or that kind of oversight remains to be seen."
Nonetheless, added fellow panelist and Hofstra University professor James Sample, "the politics matter more than the law." He noted that prominent Trump Cabinet officials like Ryan Zinke and Tom Price were forced out over similar scandals of misuse of taxpayer money.
"I think here the tell is not the use of the jet, the tell is not the BMW, although that is remarkable reporting," Sample added. "The tell here is that the letterhead comes from Chuck Grassley, and that makes it meaningful."
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