A staunch loyalist, Patel has pledged to curtail the FBI’s power and take revenge on the president-elect’s “enemies.”
Kash Patel, a close friend and former national security adviser, is the candidate that President-elect Trump wants to succeed Christopher Wray as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). A vacancy would need to be created if Wray, another Trump appointee, resigned or was fired. In 2017, Trump appointed Wray to a 10-year term.
As a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and “America First” warrior, Kash has dedicated his professional life to exposing corruption, upholding justice, and safeguarding the American people. As an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution, he was instrumental in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, Trump stated in a post on his social media platform on November 30.
The Indian American’s opinions about Trump’s second term as president and the FBI have been in the news. “I would shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one… and reopen it as a Deep State museum,” he said in an interview with podcaster Shawn Ryan. Instead of having them in D.C., he would even “send the 7,000 employees in the building ‘across America’ to go be cops.”
During a second term in the White House, he has also made a broad commitment to exact revenge on Trump’s “enemies.” In his “War Room” podcast, Steve Bannon stated that he wished to target “not just in government but in the media” as enemies.In reference to the 2020 election, Patel stated, “They are going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” “We will pursue you, whether in a civil or criminal capacity. We’re putting you all on notice.”
In his book “Government Gangsters,” Patel also outlined his plan for revenge against the FBI and Justice Department, calling for “clearing out the top ranks of the bureau, which he called a threat to the people,” according to The New York Times. A children’s book titled “The Plot Against the King” was also written by him. According to its synopsis, it exposes “the major players and tactics within the permanent government bureaucracy, which has spent decades stripping power away from the American people and their elected leaders.”
According to The New York Times, Patel’s nomination “may encounter obstacles in the Senate and is certain to cause a stir within the FBI, which Trump and his supporters now perceive as being a part of a ‘deep state’ plot against him.” The article also quotes “echoes of his failed attempt to place another partisan firebrand, Matt Gaetz, atop the Justice Department as attorney general.”
Devin Nunes’ attempt to thwart the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election involved Patel in “a very large role.” He flew to England in the summer of 2108, where he tried unsuccessfully to meet with Christopher Steele, the author of the Steele dossier that purported to detail links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Patel was the primary author of a 2018 memo, released by Nunes over the objections of the FBI, that accused federal investigators of bias against Trump and his team.
Columnist David Ignatius wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post on December 26, 2020, discussing Patel’s ascent in the administration and potential new appointments. Due to “some unusual recent moves” that imply “pro-Trump officials might be mobilizing to secure levers of power,” he warned that the nation “will be in the danger zone until the formal certification of Joe Biden’s election victory on Jan. 6 because potential domestic and foreign turmoil could give President Trump an excuse to cling to power.” He also conjectured that “the Pentagon would be the locus of any such action.” He referred to Patel’s “abrupt” return home from an Asia trip in early December, citing Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin. “Patel didn’t explain, but in mid-December, Trump discussed with colleagues the possibility that Patel might replace Christopher A. Wray as FBI director,” Ignatius said, quoting an unnamed official “Wray remains in his job,” he said.
Patel, a lawyer by profession, moved to the House following Trump’s election after spending a brief period in the Justice Department during the Obama administration. After Democrats regained control of the House in 2018, he joined the Trump administration. He first served as Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council, then as a senior adviser to Trump’s national intelligence directors, and in the last months of Trump’s presidency, he was elevated to the position of chief of staff and replaced by acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. During that time, Trump pushed the idea of installing Patel as the deputy director of the CIA. He dropped those plans after CIA director Gina Haspel threatened to resign and Attorney General William Barr argued against it.
The Jan. 6 committee also questioned him about Trump’s rejection of early calls to send the National Guard to the Capitol. In a statement, he claimed that the then-president had “multiple conversations this week with his boss, then-Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, regarding the request for National Guard personnel in D.C.” During these conversations the President conveyed to the Acting Secretary that he should take any necessary steps to support civilian law enforcement requests in securing the Capitol and federal buildings.” Additionally, he stated that there was “substantial reason to believe” that the Jan. 6 committee possesses “additional documents and information relevant to understanding the role played by the White House and the Department of Defense in preparing for and responding to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as documents and information related to your personal involvement in planning for events on Jan. 6 and the peaceful transfer of power.” Patel has also been involved in the case of Trump’s Florida documents.
Patel was born and raised in Garden City, New York, to Gurajati-born parents who arrived in the United States through Canada in 1970. They were originally from East Africa. He earned a B.A. in history and criminal justice from the University of Richmond in 2002. He received his Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law in 2005 after earning an International Law Certificate from University College London Faculty of Laws in 2004.
Patel went to Florida to serve as a state public defender for four years and then a federal public defender for four more after completing his education in New York, college in Richmond, Virginia, and law school in New York. He left Florida to work at the Department of Justice as a terrorism prosecutor in Washington, D.C. For roughly three and a half years, he served as an international terrorism prosecutor, working on cases in Uganda, Kenya, East Africa, and America.
He joined the Department of Defense’s Special Operations Command as a civilian while still working for the Department of Justice. He worked on interagency collaborative targeting operations worldwide while serving as the Department of Justice’s attorney at the Pentagon alongside Special Forces personnel. He began working as a Terrorism Prosecutor in the National Security Division (NSD) of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2014. He oversaw numerous high-profile counterterrorism prosecutions in this crucial role.
