William Webster, the only man to head both the FBI and the CIA, has urged the US Senate to reject Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s nominees as directors of the bureau and national intelligence, arguing that they are unqualified.
Writing to senators, Webster, who is aged 100 and who was appointed by both Democrat and Republican presidents, called on them to “weigh the critical importance of nonpartisan leadership and experience” and suggested that Patel and Gabbard possessed neither attribute.
“The safety of the American people – and your own families – depends on it,” he wrote, emphasising the importance of Senate confirmation hearings that will scrutinise the two nominees.
Wesbster, who was appointed as FBI director by Jimmy Carter in 1978, took aim at Patel’s suitability to head the bureau, implying that he exhibited an over-zealous loyalty to Trump that could undermine the rule of law and set a “dangerous precedent”.
Trump isn’t even qualified. That’s not a joke. I’m not trying to be funny at all.
No, Trump is qualified. He meets the qualifications set out in the Constitution, and has enough electoral votes for this second term.
He is unfit for the job, but will have it again anyway. The founders envisioned the Electoral College itself as the vehicle to prevent unfit people from assuming the office, but that isn’t working out so well.
He has engaged in a coup (and has been convicted in the House and Colorado) and therefore is actually precisely unqualified per the Constitution
There wasn’t anything against a coup member being on the ballot, which was what happened in Colorado, but regardless of number of (electoral) votes he should not be allowed to swear in
We’ll see what ends up happening though
is he qualified? there’s an argument to be made that he committed treason on january 6th and thus is ineligible for public office
The electoral college was designed to keep the wealthy minority in power, and it works well as intended. At the time that meant places with fewer people, since slaves weren’t counted, needed to compete with large cities with more diverse opinions. So the electoral votes don’t scale linearly by putting a low cap on them and a minimum. And additionally, it created a necessity for a two party system since if no one gets more than half of the votes, then the whole thing is meaningless since a single person then decides, which can be both controlled by the wealthy super-minority much more easily than having to control lots of parties. And you can confirm this even more by the fact that the electoral votes are not tied to the vote at all. The vote is just a suggestion. The state representative can vote however they want.