President-elect Trump has picked Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, signaling his intention to oust Christopher Wray and install a fierce loyalist to upend the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Trump has been bitterly critical of the agency, which he has claimed has "lost the confidence of America," per the Washington Post. "I am proud to announce that Kashyap 'Kash' Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," Trump posted Saturday night on Truth Social. "Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and 'America First' fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People."
The selection is in keeping with Trump's view that the government's law enforcement and intelligence agencies require a radical transformation and his stated desire for retribution against supposed adversaries, the AP reports. It shows how Trump, still fuming over years of federal investigations that shadowed his first administration and later led to his indictment, is moving to place atop the FBI and Justice Department close allies he expects to protect rather than scrutinize him. Patel "played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution," Trump wrote Saturday night.
It's not clear whether Patel would be confirmed, even by a Republican-led Senate, though Trump has also raised the prospect of using recess appointments to push his selections through. FBI directors serve a 10-year term, and Wray's is not up. So Trump would have to fire him, or Wray would have to resign, before Patel could take over. Proposals made by Patel in the past, if carried out, would lead to convulsive change for an agency tasked not only with investigating violations of federal law but also protecting the country from threats including terrorist attacks and foreign espionage.
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He's proposed:
- Dramatically reducing the FBI's footprint, a perspective that dramatically sets him apart from earlier directors, and has suggested closing the bureau's headquarters in Washington, then reopening it "the next day as a museum of the deep state"—Trump's pejorative catch-all for the federal bureaucracy.
- Aggressively hunting government officials who leak information to reporters and change the law to make it easier to sue journalists. Patel said he and allies "will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media," as well as those he claimed rigged the 2020 election for President Biden.
Last year, Patel published a list of "deep state" names in a book entitled Government Gangsters. Promotional materials had a quote from Trump calling it a "blueprint to help us take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government." The child of Indian immigrants and a former public defender, Patel has held multiple government jobs, per the Post, including counterterrorism adviser in the White House during Trump's first term.
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