New in SpyWeek: Mar-a-Lago Roulette

Gorka, Kash Patel & FBI, Ric Grenell & Ukraine, Bondi & Qatar, Hegseth problems, vetting issues, Trump's DOJ retribution, China intercepts, Russian assassinations, Israeli snooping on the ICC...

Trump’s latest telegenic pick, Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi, will be expected to carry out his vow to purge the DoJ of “enemies.” She will also have direct control of the department’s largely unknown but vast, highly sensitive intelligence functions, not to mention the FBI (CNN)

Late Friday Forehead Slapper: Trump names Sebastian Gorka, who couldn’t even get a security clearance in his first rodeo, to be White House NSC counterterrorism czar. WaPo reports: “Gorka’s new role has already concerned some others in Trump’s orbit. Michael Anton, a national security official in Trump’s first administration, was previously a leading candidate to become deputy national security adviser but pulled himself out of contention when he was told the National Security Council would include a position for Gorka, according to multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.” Said one source: “Almost universally, the entire team considers Gorka a clown. They are dreading working with him.”

KASH’S KORNER:  The appointment of “deep state” wrecking ball Kash Patel as FBI director edged closer after a MAGA campaign trashed Mike Rogers, a former GOP congressman who was also in the running. 

Trump’s elder son Don Jr., right-wing nationalist Steve Bannon, and dirty trickster and Trump confidant Roger Stone have pushed for Kash Patel, a former House staffer who held various intelligence and defense roles in the last Trump administration.  Semafor reported that more “conventional” Republicans were backing Rogers, a former FBI agent and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  

It was a given that Trump would be pushing out FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom he appointed in 2017. Patel has called Wray "a stooge of the deep state."

MAGA claimed victory Friday when Dan Scavino, a close Trump advisor, wrote on X that the president-elect told him the Rogers appointment was “not happening.” Scavino says Trump told him, “I have never even given it a thought.”

There was deep unease in the MAGA world over the prospect of Rogers as FBI director, even after he firmly embraced Trump during his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan. (He lost to former CIA analyst and Rep. Elissa Slotkin.) 

The conservative Daily Caller tagged Rogers with “a history of propagating Russiagate and supporting FISA surveillance.” The Federalist said Rogers couldn’t be trusted to give the FBI the “reckoning” it deserved.