Kash Patel, the former chief of staff and acting secretary of defense during the first Trump administration, was named by President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday to be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and America First fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, arguing that Patel would “bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI.”
As the quintessential Trump supporter, Patel has demanded that the Justice Department and intelligence services rid themselves of alleged adversaries.
Patel, a former public defender who advanced to increasingly high-level national security positions in the last year of Trump’s first term, has pushed the myth that Trump was cheated out of the 2020 election and unfounded allegations that federal bureaucrats in the deep state attempted to topple the former president.
In his memoir, Patel saw the current political situation as a conflict between the American people and a corrupt ruling elite and urged for the replacement of anti-democratic civil officials in intelligence and law enforcement with patriots who will serve the American people.
According to Patel’s article “Government Gangsters,” the Deep State is an unelected group of despots who feel they have the right to decide who Americans can and cannot elect as president, what the president can and cannot do, and what the American people can and cannot know.
Democratic lawmakers, former intelligence personnel, and Western officials are concerned that a hard-line Trump supporter like Patel may change the composition and purpose of the country’s intelligence community, depriving it of its impartial perspective and distorting evaluations to suit White House objectives. Furthermore, they worry that in the worst situation, the espionage services can be used as instruments to attack political rivals.
After writing a report accusing the FBI of obtaining a warrant incorrectly to spy on a former Trump campaign worker, Patel garnered favor with Trump as a congressional aide during the inquiry into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Numerous claims made in the document were eventually proven false. Although the FBI’s surveillance during the Russia probe was criticized in an inspector general report, there was no proof that federal authorities had behaved in a politically oriented manner.
Later, near the end of Trump’s first term, Patel served as chief of staff to Defense Secretary Chris Miller and as an assistant to the interim director of national intelligence in the White House National Security Council.
In the last months of Trump’s presidency, the former president suggested that Patel take over the FBI or become the deputy director of CIA. Attorney General William Barr strongly objected to the installation of Patel, and then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, a professional intelligence official, vowed to leave if it happened. Trump ultimately abandoned his intentions.
Barr subsequently stated in his memoir that Patel lacked the experience necessary to hold a position at the top of the world’s most prestigious law enforcement organization.
According to former officials, Patel and a few other Trump supporters believed there was evidence buried deep within the intelligence community that may provide additional insight into bureaucratic schemes against Trump and in support of Joe Biden.
According to Marc Short, who was vice president Mike Pence’s chief of staff at the time, the atmosphere was fairly conspiratorial.
Echoing Trump s deep state rhetoric
Patel has repeated Trump’s calls to purge supposedly disloyal federal staff and labeled journalists traitors. Last year, Patel promised to target conspirators who he said had misused their government positions in an interview with veteran Trump ally Steve Bannon.
During the first round of the Trump administration, Patel informed Bannon, “We have to put in all-American patriots from top to bottom.”
He stated that the one thing we will do that they will never do is to follow the law and the facts, go to the courts, and correct the justices and attorneys who have been pursuing these cases politically and really issuing them as lawfare.
We will go out and uncover the conspirators, not just in the government but also in the media. Yes, we will target those in the media who made false statements about Americans in order to assist Joe Biden in rigging the presidential election. “We’re going to figure that out, whether it’s criminally or civilly, but yeah, we’re putting you all on notice,” Patel stated.
Soon after the 2016 election, Trump and his supporters began to use the term “deep state,” seeing the probe into Russia’s election meddling and its outreach to the Trump campaign as an effort to undermine his presidency.
Alongside Trump during the 2024 campaign, Patel has marketed his book, its movie version, and a series of children’s books in which he plays a wizard supporting King Donald.
He has promoted the Kash Foundation, his charity, as a means of aiding the poor and giving money for legal defense to those who come forward with information about wrongdoing. However, the foundation has not made many financial data public.
The majority of the foundation’s revenue, which climbed to $1.3 million last year from $182,000 in 2022, came from donations, according to tax records for 2023. About $425,000 of the $674,000 in expenses reported by the foundation went toward marketing and advertising.
Additionally, he sold Warrior Essentials anti-vaccine diet supplements on Truth Social, which are meant to counteract the effects of the COVID-19 vaccination.
In his memoir, Patel describes how, after graduating from law school, he hoped to work for a law firm and earn a huge income, but no one would hire him. Rather, he moved to Miami to work as a public defender.
Patel has stated that he was the lead prosecutor for a federal case against a Libyan who was suspected of participating in the deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, referring to his time at the Justice Department following his work as a public defender.
In an interview with Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, on his YouTube channel, Patel stated, “I was the main Justice lead prosecutor for Benghazi.”
However, Patel was not identified as the main prosecutor or as a member of the legal team in the Justice Department’s releases at the time.
According to a court transcript, Patel was dressed down and expelled from the courtroom by federal judge Lynn Hughes during a 2016 trial in Houston for a case involving a Palestinian refugee who pled guilty to aiding ISIS.
The court stated Patel’s presence was unnecessary and asked him twice why he had gone all the way from Central Asia to attend the hearing. Additionally, he chastised Patel for not dressing adequately.
The judge said to behave like a lawyer. He said Patel was a Washington bureaucrat who would become involved in a case that didn’t need him. You are simply another unnecessary Washington employee.
Patel said in his memoir that he had hurried back from Tajikistan without a suit to go to the courtroom and that, in order to protect the government’s terrorism case, he decided not to respond to the judge who had it out for him.
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!