Americans Can’t Trust Mike Rogers To Lead The FBI

It’s no secret that the FBI has become a politicized weapon of the Democrat Party. Whether it’s interfering in elections to help leftist candidates, targeting parents at school board meetings, or treating Christians as “domestic terrorists,” the list of egregious abuses carried out by the agency is too numerous to count.

With Trump set to return to the White House this coming January, many Americans are hoping the soon-to-be 47th president will replace FBI Director Christopher Wray — who has presided over these scandals — with someone willing to gut the corruption that’s plagued the agency for years. While no official nomination has been made, one potential candidate allegedly up for the job should cause major concern for those wishing for a complete overhaul of the agency.

On Friday, sources reportedly told Fox News that 2024 Michigan GOP Senate candidate and former Rep. Mike Rogers met with Trump’s transition team at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday about “potentially serving as FBI director in the former and future president’s second administration.” Rogers, who worked at the FBI for several years before serving in Congress (2001-2015), was previously under consideration for the position during Trump’s first administration after the president fired then-Director James Comey.

The Michigan Republican also served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee from 2011-2015.

While Rogers regularly cast himself as an “America First” candidate willing to buck the establishment during his failed Senate bid, the Michigan Republican has spent his entire political career empowering the very federal agencies being weaponized against the American people.

According to The Detroit News, Rogers assisted in writing (and voted for) the Patriot Act, a law passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that’s enabled the federal government to conduct warrantless surveillance against unsuspecting Americans. Speaking in defense of the legislation in a 2005 NPR interview, the then-congressman claimed, “No due process is subjugated in the Patriot Act, not one iota.”

According to The ‘Gander, “Rogers also has a lengthy history of defending federal phone and internet surveillance programs, and he also lobbied for a long-term extension of the Patriot Act in 2011.” A press release issued by the then-congressman’s office indicated the extension involved the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which the feds later abused to spy on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Rogers suddenly changed his tune on the Patriot Act after launching his 2024 Senate campaign. As noted by The ‘Gander, in a November 2023 interview, the former congressman expressed support for revising the law, but stopped short of saying Congress should repeal it altogether.

“I think you have to reform it. We need to make sure that you can go after foreigners. This is key,” Rogers said. “They keep stretching it. You have to put some boundaries back on it.”

The Michigan Republican reportedly did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment on what prompted him to supposedly change his views.

Rogers’ record defending intel agencies’ surveillance mechanisms he helped enable is hardly the only area showcasing his affinity for protecting the status quo.

In 2014, The left-wing Daily Beast reported that Rogers, then-head of the House Intel Committee, and the chairs of the House Armed Services and Government Reform Committees, “all opposed the formation of a select committee” to investigate the Obama administration’s handling of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack. A House member allegedly told the outlet Rogers expressed worry the select committee “could be a rabbit hole” and warned members to “not let this investigation get into conspiracy theories.”

Rogers’ tenure as House Intelligence chair was met with controversy that same year, when Judicial Watch’s Micah Morrison reported that the former FBI agent’s wife Kristi worked at a military contracting firm during his time leading the committee. While Morrison acknowledged “[t]here is no evidence of wrong-doing by Rep. Rogers” or the firm, he noted that “the outlines of the story are more suggestive of ‘right-doing,’ Washington-style: an insider’s game of covert operations and corporate profits played out in the gray areas of law and policy.”

Rogers’ stint leading the committee has earned him praise from all the wrong media figures, specifically The Washington Post’s David Ignatius. In November 2022, the Russia collusion hoaxer penned a column praising Rogers for working across the aisle with Democrats during his time as House Intel chair. He further hyped Rogers as a potential 2024 GOP presidential nominee, claiming he is “a snapshot of what [the GOP] looked like before the Donald Trump circus arrived.”

Rogers’ congressional voting record also displays an unwillingness to fight the establishment.

In late 2014, the then-congressman helped pass a $1.1 trillion, 1,603-page omnibus spending package, which Heritage Action noted did “nothing to stop President Barack Obama’s unilateral, unlawful actions which include granting quasi-legal status to those who are in the country illegally.” Earlier that year, he also opposed legislation returning the Energy Department’s budget to 2008 levels, supported a bill bailing out the federal Highway Trust Fund, and backed a measure establishing a commission to study the erection of a “feminist history museum,” according to Heritage Action.

The former FBI agent further opposed additional work requirements for food stamp recipients and Republican efforts to balance the federal budget.

How is someone with that kind of track record supposed to give Americans confidence he’ll be the firebrand needed to bulldoze corruption at the FBI? The answer, of course, is he doesn’t.

Rogers is a typical D.C. institutionalist who has spent his entire political career funding and safeguarding the very agencies being weaponized to target citizens who refuse to bow to Democrats’ Marxist agenda. His priority has never been, nor will be, the interests of everyday Americans who continue to suffer as a result of his disastrous decision-making.

The last time Trump hired a federal careerist to lead the FBI, the agency’s authoritarian tactics got exponentially worse, and he and Americans suffered as a result. Let’s hope he doesn’t make the same mistake this time around.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood