President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday that he will nominate Kashyap “Kash” Patel, a 44-year-old loyalist with little experience in federal law enforcement, to serve as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Cash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ warrior who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people,” Trump wrote. a post Truth Social. “He played an important role in exposing Russia, Russia, Russian fraud and acted as a defender of truth, accountability and the Constitution.”
Patel, who will need Senate confirmation to become FBI director, has gained a reputation as a key Trump loyalist, spreading baseless “deep state” conspiracy theories and calling for Trump’s purported enemies to be purged from the FBI.
His nomination is likely to put renewed pressure on Senate Republicans, who earlier this month rejected the nomination of Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz, who was indicted in a sex-trafficking case, for attorney general.
A former senior law enforcement official who has dealt with Patel in the past said he was unfit for the job.
“It’s ridiculous. He’s the least qualified person ever to be promoted to a top federal law enforcement position,” said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation from Trump. “I don’t know of anything significant that he accomplished at the DOJ. He was not well regarded as a prosecutor.”
In the final months of Trump’s first term, Trump also suggested that Patel lead the FBI. William Barr, who was the attorney general at the time, vehemently opposed it, and Trump abandoned his plans.
Barr later wrote in his memoirs, “Patel had virtually no experience to serve at the highest level in the world’s most prestigious law enforcement agency.”
Patel promoted the lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump, as well as the baseless conspiracy theory that federal bureaucrats in the “deep state” were trying to overthrow the former president.
Patel called for “anti-democratic” civil servants in law enforcement and intelligence agencies to be replaced with “patriots” who will work for the American people. In his memoir, “Government Gangsters,” he describes the current political moment as “a battle between the people and a corrupt ruling class.”
“The Deep State is an unelected cabinet of tyrants who think they should determine who Americans can and cannot elect president,” Patel wrote. Choosing what the American people know and don’t know.
Former FBI and DOJ officials have dismissed such claims as politically motivated conspiracy theories. They note that special counsel John Durham’s years-long investigation into the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe has not led to any criminal charges against senior officials.
Democratic lawmakers worry that a hard-line Trump firebrand like Patel could reshape the structure and mission of the nation’s most powerful federal law enforcement agency. They also argue that any purging of FBI agents deemed disloyal to Trump is designed to intimidate any agent who dares to investigate the president’s conduct.
Trump’s nomination of Patel also breaks the post-Watergate norm that FBI directors serve ten-year terms. The purpose of the practice is to ensure that the FBI appears apolitical and does not serve the political interests of a particular president. Current FBI Director Christopher Uray’s ten-year term is set to expire in 2027.
Following Trump’s announcement, the FBI said in a statement, “Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from growing threats. Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we work with and the people we do the work for.”
Repeats Trump’s “deep state” claims
Patel, a former public defender and federal prosecutor who rose to increasingly senior national security posts in the final year of Trump’s first term, won Trump’s favor as a congressional staffer during the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
He produced a memo accusing the FBI of making mistakes in how it obtained a warrant for the surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Many of the Memo’s claims were later disproved. While the inspector general’s report found flaws in the FBI’s oversight of the Russia investigation, it also found no evidence of political partisanship by federal agencies.
Patel later served on Trump’s White House National Security Council, briefly as an adviser to the acting director of national intelligence and chief of staff to Defense Secretary Chris Miller at the end of Trump’s first term.
In addition to suggesting that Patel serve as FBI director in the final months of his tenure, Trump suggested that Patel serve as deputy director of the CIA. The next CIA director, career spy Gina Haspel, threatened to resign if Patel was appointed.
Patel and some other Trump loyalists suspected the intelligence community was hiding information that could shed more light on bureaucratic plots against Trump and in favor of Joe Biden, former officials said.
“It was quite a conspiratorial environment at the time,” said Mark Short, then-Vice President Mike Pence’s acting chief of staff.
Patel echoed Trump’s rhetoric of calling journalists traitors and challenging them “cleaning” supposedly disloyal federal civil servants. In an interview with longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon last year, Patel vowed to go after “conspirators” who he claimed were abusing their positions in government.
“One thing we’ve learned in the Trump administration is, first and foremost, we have to accommodate all American patriots from top to bottom,” Patel told Bannon.
“And the one thing they will never do is for us to follow the facts and the law and go to the courts of law and reform the lawyers who are prosecuting these cases based on politics and actually litigating them. legality,” he said.
“We’re going to go out and find the conspirators, not just in the government, but in the media — yes, we’re going to go after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped rig Joe Biden’s presidential election.” Whether it’s criminal or civil, we’ll figure it out — but yes, we’re putting you all on notice,” Patel said.
Trump and his allies first began talking about the “deep state” shortly after the 2016 election, framing the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the election and its meddling in the Trump campaign as an attempt to sabotage his presidency.
“Wizard” Defending “King Donald”
Patel joined Trump on the 2024 campaign and promoted his memoir, the film adaptation of the memoir, and children’s books featuring him as a “wizard” defending “King Donald.”
He launched his charity, the Kash Foundation, as a way to help those in need and provide legal defense funds to whistleblowers and others. However, the foundation disclosed few details about its finances.
according to tax returns Fund revenue for 2023 rose to $1.3 million last year, compared to $182,000 in 2022, with most of the money coming from donations. The foundation listed expenses of $674,000, with about $425,000 spent on advertising and marketing.
There is also Patel appeared Truth Social peddling “Warrior Essentials” anti-vaccine dietary supplements that are supposed to “reverse” the effects of Covid-19 vaccines.
In his memoirs, Patel says that after law school, he wanted to get a job at a law firm and get a “high salary,” but “nobody would hire me.” Instead, he became a public defender in Miami.
Patel, citing his work at the Justice Department after working as a public defender, claimed to be the “lead prosecutor” in the federal case against a Libyan man accused of involvement in the deadly 2012 attack on a US compound in Benghazi.
“I was the main Attorney General of Benghazi,” Patel said in an interview on a YouTube channel hosted by former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan.
But at the time, Justice Department announcements did not list Patel as lead prosecutor or part of the legal team.
In 2016, during the trial of a Palestinian refugee accused of supporting ISIS in Houston, federal judge Lynn Hughes dressed Patel and threw him out of chambers. court record.
The judge repeatedly asked why Patel had flown all the way from Central Asia to attend the proceedings, as the judge said his presence was unnecessary. And he scolded Patel for not dressing properly.
“Act like a lawyer,” said the judge. He accused Patel of being a Washington bureaucrat and getting involved in something he didn’t need. “‘You’re just another non-essential worker from Washington.’
Patel wrote in his memoirs that he had rushed back from Tajikistan and had no suit to wear to the courtroom, choosing not to speak to the judge who “did it for me” so as not to damage the government’s terrorism. case