Lebanese-American businessman Massad Boulos was nominated by US President-elect Donald Trump to serve as senior advisor on Arab and Middle East affairs in the new White House.
US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday announced the nomination of Lebanese-American businessman Massad Boulos to serve as senior adviser on Arab and Arab affairs. Middle East in his new administration.
Boulos is the father-in-law of Trump's daughter, Tiffany. He was a member of Trump's election campaign and worked on outreach to Arab-American communities in the key state of Michigan, amid discontent with the Biden administration's response to Israel's offensives against militants in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Trump won the state in last month's election, after losing there to President Joe Biden in 2020.
“Massad is a negotiator and unwavering supporter of PEACE in the Middle East,” Trump said on his Truth Social site. “He will be a strong advocate for the United States and its interests, and I am pleased to have him on our team!”
Kash Patel chosen to head FBI
Trump on Saturday named Kash Patel to lead the FBI, saying “she is a brilliant lawyer, investigator and fighter for 'America First' who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people.”
Patel, 44, held three Defense, Intelligence and Homeland Security positions in the first Trump administration, but has endeared himself to the incoming chief executive by promising to clean up the “deep state” at the FBI. He also said he would launch a retaliation campaign against Trump's adversaries, including FBI agents who have investigated the former and future president, journalists and others.
During his first term, Trump suggested naming Patel as deputy director of the FBI, but then-Attorney General William Barr, now a Trump critic, said the appointment would only come “over my dead body.”
Patel has promised to close the FBI headquarters in Washington and send many of its agents around the country to fight crime, not to launch more intelligence-gathering operations.
The first hurdle Trump has to overcome to install Patel as FBI director is that there is already an FBI director, Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump and whose 10-year term runs through 2027.
Trump would have to fire Wray or Wray would have to resign before Patel could take office. FBI directors are appointed to decade-long terms by design, so that their mandates and investigative directives are not subject to the political whims of the moment. But Trump already fired an FBI director, James Comey, in 2017, before appointing Wray.
Trump says the FBI is “very broken” and has “lost the trust of the United States.”
Patel faces a Senate confirmation hearing and is likely to face tough questioning over how he would run the agency and supervise its more than 10,000 criminal investigation agents and 25,000 other staff.
Patel's appointment joins other unconventional Trump appointments: vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to oversee the health and human services department, talk show host Pete Hegseth, a lightly decorated military officer management experience, for be the head of the Pentagonand Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic congresswoman turned staunch Trump defender, as director of national intelligence.
Trump's first nominee for attorney general, former congressman Matt Gaetz, retired after eight days facing widespread scrutiny for his alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use; charges that Gaetz has denied.
Some Republican senators praised Patel's appointment. Republicans will have a 53-47 majority in the Senate next year, meaning Patel could lose the support of three senators and still be confirmed, with Vice President-elect JD Vance casting the decisive tie-breaking vote if necessary.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said on the show “Meet the Press” of the NBC that Patel “represents the kind of change we need to see in the FBI… The entire agency needs to be dismantled.”
“There are serious problems at the FBI,” Hagerty said. “The American public knows it. “They hope to see radical change, and Kash Patel is just the kind of person who will do it.”
Another Republican senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, said Patel was a “very strong nominee” and that he thought Patel would be confirmed.
“All the crying and gnashing of teeth, all the people pulling out their hair, those are exactly the people who are dismayed to have a real reformer in the FBI,” Cruz said on “Face the Nation.” CBS.
A third Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, said, “Every president wants people who are loyal to themselves.” But he called Wray “a very good man,” adding: “I have no complaints about the way he has done his job at this point.”
Democrats will almost certainly oppose the nomination.
Senator Chris Murphy told NBC: “Patel's only qualification is that he agrees with Donald Trump that the Justice Department should punish, imprison and intimidate Donald Trump's political opponents.”
(Some material in this report comes from The Associated Press)