President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday that he would nominate Kashyap “Kash” Patel, a 44-year-old loyalist with limited experience in federal law enforcement, to serve as the next 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 in a post on Truth Social. “He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.”
Patel, who will need Senate confirmation to become FBI director, has built a reputation as a staunch Trump loyalist. He has promoted baseless “deep state” conspiracy theories and called for purging perceived enemies of Trump from the FBI.
“It is the honor of a lifetime to be nominated by President Trump to serve as Director of the FBI,” Patel said in a statement. “Together, we will restore integrity, accountability, and equal justice to our justice system and return the FBI to its rightful mission: protecting the American people.”
Patel’s nomination will likely put pressure on Senate Republicans, who recently rejected Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz, a firebrand Trump ally under criminal investigation for sex trafficking, to serve as Attorney General.
A former senior law enforcement official who had worked with Patel criticized his qualifications for the position.
“It’s ridiculous. He’s arguably the least qualified person ever nominated for a senior position in federal law enforcement,” the former official said, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I don’t know anything significant that he achieved at the DOJ. He was not well regarded as a prosecutor.”
During the final months of Trump’s first term, Trump considered naming Patel FBI director. However, then-Attorney General William Barr strongly opposed the idea, and Trump ultimately dropped the plan.
“Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency,” Barr wrote in his memoir.
Patel has promoted the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and spread the baseless conspiracy theory that federal bureaucrats in the “deep state” attempted to overthrow the former president.
He has called for replacing “anti-democratic” civil servants in law enforcement and intelligence agencies with “patriots” who he says will serve the American people. In his memoir, Government Gangsters, he described the political landscape as “a battle between the people and a corrupt ruling class.”
“The Deep State is an unelected cabal of tyrants who think they should determine who Americans can and cannot elect as president,” Patel wrote. “They think they get to decide what the president can and cannot do, and who believe they have the right to choose what the American people can and cannot know.”
Former FBI and DOJ officials have dismissed these claims as politically motivated conspiracy theories. They note that Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe found no criminal charges against senior officials.
Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern that someone like Patel, a hard-line Trump loyalist, could radically alter the makeup and mission of the FBI. They also argue that any purge of FBI agents deemed disloyal to Trump would aim to intimidate those who investigate the President’s conduct.
Trump’s nomination of Patel also challenges a post-Watergate norm that FBI Directors serve ten-year terms. The tradition is meant to ensure the FBI remains apolitical and not beholden to any single president’s interests. The current FBI director, Christopher Wray, is scheduled to complete his term in 2027.
Following Trump’s announcement, the FBI released a statement: “Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.”
Supporting Trump’s ‘deep state’ claims
A former public defender and federal prosecutor, Patel rose to increasingly senior national security positions during the final year of Trump’s first term.
Patel first gained Trump’s favor in 2017 when he worked as a congressional staffer for former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Trump and his allies viewed the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, and its outreach to members of the Trump campaign, as an effort to undermine his presidency. Patel drafted a memo accusing the FBI of errors in how it obtained a warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Many of the memo’s claims were later disproven. An inspector general report found faults with the FBI’s surveillance during the Russia investigation, but it also concluded that federal authorities had not acted with political bias.
Patel later served in Trump’s White House National Security Council, briefly as an adviser to the acting director of national intelligence, and as chief of staff to Defense Secretary Chris Miller at the end of Trump’s first term.
In addition to proposing Patel as FBI director during his final months in office, Trump also suggested Patel for the position of deputy CIA director. Then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, a career intelligence officer, threatened to resign if Patel were appointed.
Patel and other Trump loyalists believed the intelligence community was hiding information that could reveal efforts to undermine Trump and support Joe Biden, according to former officials.
“It was a fairly conspiratorial environment at that point,” recalled Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
Patel also adopted Trump’s rhetoric against journalists, calling them traitors and advocating for the removal of allegedly disloyal federal civil servants. In a 2023 interview with longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon, Patel vowed to pursue “conspirators” whom he claimed had abused their government positions.
“The one thing we learned in the Trump administration the first go-around is that we have to put in all-American patriots top to bottom,” Patel told Bannon.
“And the one thing that we will do that they never will do is follow the facts and the law and go to courts of law,” he said. “And correct these justices and lawyers who have been prosecuting these cases based on politics.”
“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media — yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel added. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’re going to figure that out — but yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
A ‘wizard’ protecting ‘King Donald’
Patel joined Trump on the 2024 campaign trail and has promoted his memoir, a film adaptation of the memoir, and a series of children’s books in which he portrays himself as a “wizard” defending “King Donald.”
He has also promoted his charity, the Kash Foundation, as a way to support the needy and provide legal defense funds to whistleblowers and others.
Tax filings for 2023 show that the foundation’s revenue grew to $1.3 million, compared to $182,000 in 2022, with much of the funds coming from donations. The foundation spent $674,000, including about $425,000 on advertising and marketing.
Patel has appeared on Truth Social to promote “Warrior Essentials,” anti-vaccine diet supplements, claiming they can “reverse” the effects of Covid-19 vaccines.
In his memoir, Patel recounts how, after law school, he dreamed of working at a law firm with a “sky-high salary,” but he was unable to land a job. Instead, he became a public defender in Miami.
Regarding his time as a Justice Department prosecutor, Patel has claimed he was the “lead prosecutor” in a federal case against a Libyan man accused of participating in the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi.
“I was the main Justice lead prosecutor for Benghazi,” Patel said in an interview on a YouTube channel hosted by former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan.
However, Justice Department records from the time do not list Patel as the lead prosecutor or part of the legal team.
In 2016, during a court proceeding in Houston for a case involving a Palestinian refugee who pleaded guilty to supporting ISIS, a federal judge, Lynn Hughes, reprimanded Patel and ordered him out of the chambers, according to a court transcript.
The judge questioned why Patel had flown from Central Asia to attend the proceeding, deeming his presence unnecessary. He also scolded Patel for not dressing appropriately.
“Act like a lawyer,” the judge said.
Patel explained in his memoir that he had rushed back from Tajikistan and lacked a suit to wear. He chose not to argue with the judge, whom he claimed “had it out for me,” in order to avoid harming the government’s case.
A former senior federal law enforcement official who worked under Trump during his first term said the nominations of Patel and Matt Gaetz reflected Trump’s disdain for the DOJ and FBI, particularly their efforts to avoid being used for political purposes.
“He’s just going to run roughshod over them,” the former official predicted, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation. “He’s thumbing his nose at the DOJ and FBI with these nominations. He’s going to effect his will regardless of our norms.”
