CNN
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Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the FBI and an ardent supporter of the president-elect, has vowed to help dismantle the same organization he intends to lead.
The former public defender is widely seen as a controversial figure, whose value to the president-elect derives largely from their shared disdain for the establishment in Washington.
To put him in charge of the FBI, it would be necessary to force the removal of current Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by President Trump in 2017, before his 10-year term expires in three years. The move has already drawn bipartisan criticism.
The FBI director must also be confirmed by the Senate, and senators are already anxious about how to navigate Trump’s many unconventional picks.
As of late last week, some people close to President Trump were talking with Patel and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey about who the president-elect would choose to lead the FBI, according to people familiar with the discussions. He said he thought it was an “exchange of opinions”.
But some of Trump’s aides aren’t happy with either option, the people said, adding that if Trump hasn’t made a decision by then, an unknown A third candidate would have emerged, he added.
Patel, in particular, is not seen as a consensus choice for the job, the people said, and ultimately it always comes down to what Trump wants and potentially the last person he spoke to that day. He pointed out that it would be decided.
In his 2023 book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, Truth, and the Fight for Our Democracy, Patel lays out his case against what he calls the “deep state.” are. The amorphous term also includes elected leaders, he said. Journalists, Big Tech moguls and “unelected members of the bureaucracy” are calling for a “comprehensive deep clean” of the Justice Department, which has protected senior members of the Justice Department, he said. claims. Democrats are unfairly targeting Republicans and their allies.
According to the blurb, President Trump praised the book as “a blueprint for taking back the White House and ridding the entire government of gangs.”
Patel has been a vocal critic of the FBI, and in a podcast interview in September called for the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to be demolished and turned into a “museum of the deep state.”
“The FBI’s footprint has become unusually large,” Patel said on “The Sean Ryan Show,” criticizing the FBI’s intelligence-gathering efforts.
During the interview, Patel also mocked the FBI for its 2022 search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, which led to charges against the former president of possessing classified documents. The judge overseeing the case ultimately dismissed the charges against Trump, finding that the special counsel was illegally appointed.
In a 2023 interview with Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon, Patel said the Justice Department under Trump would “go after” members of the media.
“We have to commit American patriots from top to bottom,” Patel said of the Justice Department, adding that under Trump, the department “is going to hunt down conspirators, not just in government, but in the media.” he added.
“Yes, we’re going to go after members of the media who lied about the American people and helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election — we’re going to go after you,” he said.
When President Trump reportedly considered making Patel deputy director of the FBI during his first term, former Attorney General Bill Barr wrote in his memoir that Patel was “one of the greatest law enforcement agents in the world.” “He had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest levels of the agency.” ”, adding that Mr. Patel would be the FBI’s No. 2 “against my corpse.”
Senators who need Patel’s approval are divided sharply along party lines over the announcement.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who currently chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Patel an “unqualified loyalist,” and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said Sunday that Patel’s “only qualifications… I just agree with Donald Trump that the department should serve.” To punish, imprison, and intimidate Donald Trump’s political opponents. ”
Meanwhile, incoming Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley harshly criticized the current FBI director in a social media post, saying Wray had “failed” during his tenure. But he added that Mr Patel “has to prove to Parliament” that he will do better than Mr Wray.
Mr. Patel, a self-described native New Yorker, was raised Hindu by immigrant parents, according to his book. He wrote that although he grew up apolitical, he became more right-wing while attending the University of Richmond. This, he wrote, made his eventual career as a public defender a “strange fit.” He described his colleagues in the field as “the far left of the left.”
Patel graduated from Pace University School of Law in 2005 and then worked as a public defender in Florida for about nine years, according to his book. He worked in the public defender’s office for Miami-Dade County and the Southern District of Florida.
Patel went on to work as a federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s National Security Division, according to the book. He called it a “dream job” for a young lawyer.
Patel oversaw the prosecution of criminals affiliated with al-Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorist organizations at the Justice Department, according to a Pentagon profile. He also served as the Justice Department liaison officer to Joint Special Operations Command during operations against “high-value terrorist targets.”
Patel claims to be the “lead prosecutor” in the Justice Department’s case against those responsible for the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. However, the New York Times reported in October that Patel was a junior staff member at the time and was not part of the trial team.
In 2018, Patel served as an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, then the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Patel played a key role in Nunes’ efforts to discredit the FBI’s Russia investigation into the Trump campaign, including a controversial classified memo alleging the FBI’s abuse of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against the Trump campaign. I accomplished it.
Patel served on the National Security Council under Trump in 2019 before becoming chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller at the end of Trump’s first term. President Trump briefly floated Patel as a potential candidate to replace then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, who he was considering firing after the 2020 election. Patel was also appointed to lead the Pentagon’s transition effort during the Trump administration’s first term, overseeing coordination with the incoming Biden-Harris administration.
Mr. Patel was also embroiled in a classified documents lawsuit against Mr. Trump, which has now been dismissed. He will be one of President Trump’s appointees to interact with the National Archives and the Department of Justice during the summer of 2022 as both agencies seek to recover classified records held by Trump from his time in office. It became. CNN reported at the time that Patel is one of the few advisers to Trump who could take on legal risks related to the Mar-a-Lago incident after taking office, including investigating the incident. Appeared before a federal grand jury. Mr. Patel was not charged in the case.
In 2021, he also met with the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, during which Patel provided important insight into how the Pentagon and White House prepared. It was found that there was “sufficient reason to believe” that he had. responded to the attack.
Patel said in a statement at the time that she attended the panel discussion “to answer questions to the best of my ability.”
After Trump: Children’s books and foundations
Patel is seen as a relentless self-promoter even among Trump supporters, and has used her perceived closeness with the president-elect to maintain her public image through her books and positions at foundations and think tanks.
Since the first Trump administration, Patel has written a trilogy of children’s books titled “The Plot Against the King.” The first book tells the story of “Hilary Queenton and the Wayward Knight,” who “spread the lie that King Donald tricked him into becoming king.” The second is a story about “searching for the truth and uncovering evidence of a horrifying plan to elect Sleepy Joe in place of King Donald on Choosing Day.” And his latest book, published in September, tells the story of a “MAGA King” who embarks on a journey to “defeat Comma La La La and reclaim his throne.”
The group said Patel founded Fight with Kash (now the Kash Foundation), which is “dedicated to providing financial assistance, legal defense funds and educational programs to active duty military and veterans.” That’s what it means.
Last year, Patel and his foundation announced that two witnesses for Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, tasked with proving that the federal government had been “weaponized” against conservatives, He came under intense scrutiny after he said he had paid the legal fees.
Kash also serves on the board of Trump Media Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, the foundation said.
Kash also previously served as a senior fellow in national security and intelligence at the Center for Renewing America, a think tank founded by Russell Vought. Vought was nominated by President Trump to lead the Office of Management and Budget and is one of the lead authors of the Conservative Blueprint Project 2025.
CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Holmes Lybrand, Evan Perez, Kristen Holmes, Morgan Rimmer and Jalen Beckford contributed to this report.
