Trump 'henchman' Kash Patel's lawsuit threat ominous sign of 'what's to come': ex-official

A former national security official in Donald Trump's first administration stood by her criticism of FBI director nominee Kash Patel and said his threatened lawsuit was an ominous sign of "what's to come."

Olivia Troye, a former counterterrorism aide to Mike Pence, was threatened with legal action by Patel for calling him a "delusional liar" on television and criticizing the quality of his work as untrustworthy when the two of them served together in the first Trump White House, and she told CNN that she stood by her remarks.

"I think it's a very clear sign of what's to come should he become the director of the FBI and how he's going to conduct himself," Troye said. "I mean, we should take him at his word. These are things that he has threatened in the past, and I think by doing what he did, by sending that letter to me, it was an attempt to bully me, silence me, intimidate me. But it's also a signal to others, right, as he goes into the confirmation process of of trying to silence others in terms of telling the truth about his background. I mean, look, I am a person who believes that he is unfit for the role of FBI director, and I have concerns about how he will behave in the role in you know, leading the nation's premier law enforcement agency."

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Patel has little experience as a prosecutor, but he has publicly vowed to "come after" Trump's enemies in politics and the media, which the former president had made a theme of his re-election campaign.

"I'm not going to retract from telling the truth, that is where I am, and this is something that I lived when I was working with him, and it is absolutely true," Troye said. "You know, my job in that role was to serve the vice president of the United States in the best way possible, that is what I did, and if it meant, you know, at times not taking Kash at his word, going around like there were people on his staff that used to come to my office and seek counsel from me and advice about what it was like to work for him, who know exactly what I'm talking about. Others have been very public about the things that I mentioned. I am not the only senior national security official who has, you know, come out and said they have concerns about Kash Patel and his fitness for this role."

Troye said she would be willing to testify against Patel at his Senate confirmation hearings, and she suspects other former colleagues from the National Security Council would be, as well.

"The reason that I think this is so important is because we are people that worked in nonpartisan roles," Troye said. "That's how the national security community works, right, and that is why we're concerned, because when it comes to someone that's going to lead the FBI, the last thing we need is a loyalist partisan hack leading that agency and doing things that are going to be just for the president's or his personal vendetta, and that is why this matters so much."

In the appendix to his his 2023 book “Government Gangsters,” Patel lists 60 individuals he refers to as “Members of the Executive Branch Deep State," and Troye said she and others named on that apparent enemies list should consider accepting pre-emptive pardons if offered by president Joe Biden.

"It's certainly something to consider," she said. "I guess my question is, I have not done anything wrong. I know that, and I know that many of us who have just spoken the truth, all we are doing is speaking the truth. But in today's environment, in terms of what's to come under the Trump administration, I think that's something that we're all thinking about and wondering what's to come, and I think I am a prime example of what's to come when I've already gotten a threatening letter by someone like Kash Patel, who we know is a loyalist and a henchman for Donald Trump."

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