Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI and an ardent supporter of the president-elect, has vowed to help dismantle the same organization he’s poised to lead.
The former public defender is widely viewed as a controversial figure and one whose value to the president-elect largely derives from their shared disdain for established power in Washington.
Putting him in charge of the FBI would require forcing out current director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, before his 10-year term expires in three years — a future move that has already prompted bipartisan criticism.
The FBI director must also be confirmed by the Senate, where members are already bracing for how they’ll navigate a slew of unorthodox Trump selections.
As of late last week, some close to Trump believed it was a “toss-up” between Patel and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as to whom the president-elect would pick for FBI director, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
But some in Trump’s inner circle were not happy with either option, the source said, adding a third, unknown candidate would likely have emerged in the next week or two if Trump hadn’t made a decision by then.
Patel, in particular, is not viewed as a consensus choice for the job, the source said, noting that it was always going to come down to what Trump wanted and, potentially, the last person he spoke to on a given day.
Vows to take on the ‘deep state’
In his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel lays out his case against what he refers to as “the deep state” — an amorphous term he says includes elected leaders, journalists, Big Tech tycoons and “members of the unelected bureaucracy” — calling for “a comprehensive housecleaning” of the Justice Department, which he claims has protected high-ranking members of the Democratic Party while unjustly targeting Republicans and their allies.
Trump has praised the book as a “blueprint to take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government,” according to promotional endorsements.
Patel has heavily criticized the FBI, and in a podcast interview in September, he called for the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC, to be dismantled and turned into a “museum of the deep state.”
“The FBI’s footprint has gotten so freakin’ big,” Patel said on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” criticizing the agency’s intelligence-gathering operation.
During the interview, Patel also ridiculed the FBI for its 2022 search warrant of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, which led to charges being brought against the former president for retaining classified documents. The judge overseeing that case eventually dismissed the charges against Trump after finding the special counsel was unlawfully appointed.
In a 2023 interview with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, Patel said the Justice Department under Trump would “come after” members of the media.
“We’ve got to put in all-American patriots top to bottom,” Patel said of the DOJ, adding that the department under Trump “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 — we’re going to come after you,” he said.
When Trump, during his first term, reportedly considered making Patel deputy director of the FBI, former Attorney General Bill Barr wrote in his memoir that Patel “had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency,” adding that Patel would become the FBI’s No. 2 “over my dead body.”
The senators who will need to confirm Patel have been largely split along party lines on the announcement.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Patel “an unqualified loyalist,” and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy on Sunday said Patel’s “only qualification is … he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should serve to punish, lock up and intimidate Donald Trump’s political opponents.”
Incoming Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, meanwhile, heavily criticized Wray, the current FBI director, saying in a social media post that he “failed” during his tenure. But he added that Patel “must prove to Congress” that he will do better than Wray.
Rise to Washington
Patel, who calls himself a native New Yorker, was raised Hindu by his immigrant parents, according to his book. He wrote that he grew up apolitical but became more right-wing during his time in college at the University of Richmond. This, he wrote, made his eventual public defense career a “strange fit”; he described his colleagues in that field as “the far left of the left-wing.”
Patel graduated from Pace University School of Law in 2005 and then worked for about nine years as a public defender in Florida, according to his book. He spent stints in the public defender’s office in Miami-Dade County and in the Southern District of Florida.
Patel went on to work as a federal prosecutor in the National Security Division of the DOJ, according to his book. He called that a “dream job” for any young lawyer.
At the DOJ, Patel oversaw the prosecution of criminals aligned with al Qaeda, ISIS and other terror groups, according to a Department of Defense profile. He also served as the DOJ liaison officer to the Joint Special Operations Command during operations against “high value terrorism targets.”
Patel has claimed to be the “lead prosecutor” in the DOJ’s case against those who carried out the 2012 attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. But 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 went on to serve as an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee at the time. Patel played a key role in Nunes’ efforts to discredit the FBI’s Russia investigation into the Trump campaign, including a controversial classified memo that alleged FBI abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants on Trump advisers.
Joining the Trump administration
In 2019, Patel went to work for Trump on the National Security Council before becoming chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller at the end of Trump’s first term. Trump briefly floated Patel as a potential replacement for then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, whom he had considered firing after the 2020 election. Patel was also put in charge of the Pentagon transition effort for Trump’s first term, overseeing coordination with the incoming Biden-Harris administration.
Patel was also swept up in the classified documents case against Trump, which has now been dismissed. Over the summer of 2022, he became one of Trump’s designees to interact with the National Archives and the Justice Department as both agencies tried to repossess classified records Trump had kept from his presidency. Patel was one of a handful of advisers around Trump after his presidency who could have legal risk related to the Mar-a-Lago situation, CNN reported at the time, and he appeared before the federal grand jury that was looking into the case. Patel was not charged in the case.
In 2021, he also met with the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which found at the time that “there is substantial reason to believe” that Patel had important insight into how the Department of Defense and White House prepared for and responded to the attack.
In a statement at the time, Patel said that he had appeared before the panel “to answer questions to the best of my ability.”
After Trump: Children’s books and foundations
Patel, considered even among Trump loyalists to be a relentless self-promoter, has used his perceived closeness with the president-elect to sustain his public image through books and positions with foundations and think tanks.
Since the first Trump administration, Patel has written a children’s book trilogy titled “The Plot Against the King.” The first book tells the story of “Hillary Queenton and her shifty knight” who “spread lies that King Donald had cheated to become King.” The second tells the story of the “search for the truth and uncover evidence of a terrible scheme to elect Sleepy Joe instead of King Donald on Choosing Day.” And his latest book, published in September, tells the story of the “MAGA King” on a journey to “take down Comma-la-la-la and reclaim his throne.”
Patel founded Fight With Kash — now the Kash Foundation — which is “dedicated to providing financial assistance to active duty service members and veterans, legal defense funds, and education programs,” according to the organization.
Patel — and his foundation — came under scrutiny last year after two of Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan’s witnesses in his mission to prove the federal government has been “weaponized” against conservatives said Patel paid their legal fees.
According to his foundation, Kash also sits on the board of directors for Trump Media Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
Kash has also served as senior fellow for national security and intelligence at the Center for Renewing America, a think tank founded by Russell Vought — Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget and one of the key 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.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
