Does Kash Patel deserve to run the FBI? Of course he does – and I'll take a lie detector test to prove it
Not so long ago, publishing deeply weird books about the president while also promoting wild QAnon conspiracy theories would get you put on some kind of watchlist. Now it gets you a top job as the guy in charge of watchlists. Patel is not just a children's book author; he is also the director of the FBI. His chief qualification for the role appears to be his extreme devotion to President Donald Trump. He certainly didn't have any FBI experience before getting the job as head of the agency.
I don't know if Patel suffers from impostor syndrome – a condition that normally afflicts overqualified women – but he does seem a tad insecure. Last week the New York Times reported that Patel's FBI has 'significantly' increased its use of lie detector tests to screen employees for loyalty. According to the Times, some people have specifically been asked if they've ever been rude about their boss; 'disparaging Mr Patel or his deputy, Dan Bongino … could cost people their job'. Woe betide the FBI underling who admits that they think Patel's official photo on the US Department of Defense website (which has been much-memed online) looks as if he's just been caught smoking joints behind the bike shed and is trying his very best to act sober.
Polygraph tests, which track physiological reactions (eg did your heart rate spike?) while you answer questions, are notoriously unreliable. They can be successfully gamed by people who know how they work and are adept at controlling their bodily responses in high-pressure situations. You know, people like FBI employees. That said, it's certainly possible that the FBI is secretly in possession of infallible lie-detecting technology (called something like WaterboardingAI™?).
While Patel may come across as insecure, paranoid and generally doolally, he is not always wrong. In his 2023 opus Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, which is written for 'grownups', he writes about how power works in Washington.
'I regularly used to tell people that the fastest way to move up in the government is to just screw up, and the bigger the screw-up, the bigger the promotion,' he writes. 'Every person implicated in your mistakes has an interest in covering up what they did, so they will promote you. That means the people at the very top are usually the most immoral, unethical people in the entire agency.' No comment there.
Anyway, I think I've screwed up myself. Like a dimwit, I've just realised that all of the above might sound a tad disparaging towards Patel. Which, as a British-Palestinian on a green card that's up for renewal, was certainly not my intention. So, just to clarify, Kash, I've been writing in English-English. While American English tends to be blunt, the king's English is a whole different kettle of fish.
When we say, 'That's very interesting,' for example, we often mean it's absolute tripe. When we say 'quite good', it means either that something was indeed quite good or that it was actually quite disappointing – you've got to read the room. Calling something 'not bad', on the other hand, often means it's very good.
And, of course, the British are also very fond of sarcasm, which Americans can sometimes miss. So, with the greatest respect, Mr Patel, I do not think you are an idiot. I think you are a 'distinguished discoverer' and the greatest FBI director to ever walk God's green Earth. And I'll even take a lie detector test to prove it.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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