“Kash Patel better get an attorney soon,” Figliuzzi told SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah on The Dean Obeidallah Show, Mediaite reported. “Because Kash Patel was the guy saying, ‘I knew all about this standing declassification order. I know all about it.’”
Patel, who served as a former chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller during the Trump administration, was mentioned by name in the heavily redacted FBI search warrant affidavit that was unsealed on Friday by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.
The ex-Trump official slammed the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday for leaving his name unredacted in the document, saying in a Truth Social post that revealing his name was “politicization by DOJ at its finest.”
He also said in a separate statement that the Biden administration had “intentionally jeopardized” his safety by releasing his name. Patel, who is of Indian descent, concluded his remarks by stating that “Brown Lives Matter.”
“Today marks another vicious attack from DOJ/FBI who intentionally jeopardized my safety by un-redacting my name in the most reviewed search warrant in the history of the United States,” wrote Patel. “This cartel of corruption inside of our government is so devoid of concern about national security…The DOJ is on the line for my security with their dangerous actions.”
He added: “This same FBI has been investigating death threats made against me due to baseless political overreach by government gangsters and in their greed for political vengeance, have threatened my safety again. Brown Lives Matter. These gangsters are on notice.”
Patel was referenced in the affidavit in connection with his claim that Trump had already declassified the documents that were recovered from Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, which reportedly contained sensitive information related to nuclear weapons and “highly classified programs.”
Trump’s office made that same argument stating that the ex-president had a “standing order” to declassify those documents so that he could take it to his Florida home. Former DOJ official, Mary McCord, said that Trump had no authority to do such a thing after leaving office, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile on Friday, Obeidallah asked Figliuzzi about his thoughts about Trump’s document declassification claims.
“Can you explain two things to people? One is, can Trump just say these are declassified, and that makes them declassified?” Obeidallah asked. “And secondly, can you just declassify a document, but what’s still in it, like What’s in it? Like where are all our spy locations, information, could that still be classified?”
“So I tell you what, why don’t you and I, when we’re done with our talk here today, let’s go offline, and both of us will file a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. government and we’ll say, ‘Hey, we hear that all those pages of classified documents that were at Mar-a-Lago are declassified and we’d love to get a copy, since now they’re unclassified.’ And let’s see what the answer is,” Figliuzzi said.
“You know what the answer is going to be? Screw you, Dean and Frank,” he added. “Because they’re not declassified. They’re not!”
Newsweek reached out to Patel’s office for comment.
