Kas Patel has called for radical changes at the FBI and has been a fierce and outspoken critic of the bureau’s work in investigating links between them Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Now Trump’s steadfast ally has been tapped to lead the federal law enforcement agency he is tasked with putting under pressure.
A look at Patel, Trump’s pick to replace Christopher Wray on top of the FBI.
Patel has been a loyal Trump ally for years, finding common cause in their shared skepticism about government surveillance and the “deep state” — a pejorative catch-all term used by Trump to refer to the government bureaucracy.
He was part of a small group of supporters during The recent criminal trial against Trump in New York, who accompanied him to the courthouse, where he told reporters that Trump was the victim of an “unconstitutional circus.”
That close relationship would deviate from the contemporary precedent of FBI directors wanting to keep presidents at arm’s length.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, memorably recoiled when Trump asked him to pledge his loyalty to him during a private dinner. And Wray, who had no personal ties to Trump when he was picked to replace Comey, broke with Trump on several current issues and served as FBI director during investigations into Trump that ultimately led to his indictment.
Patel has signaled through interviews and public statements that he is determined to turn the FBI upside down and radically reform its mission.
He calls for drastically reducing its footprint and limiting its authority, and for cracking down on government officials who release information to reporters.
In an interview earlier this year on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Patel vowed to separate the FBI’s intelligence-gathering activities from the rest of its mission and said he would “close” the bureau’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state’.”
“And I would take the 7,000 employees who work in that building and send them all over America to chase criminals,” he added.
In a separate interview with Conservative strategist Steve Bannon, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not only in the government, but also in the media.”
“We are going after the people in the media who lied about American citizens helping Joe Biden rig the presidential election,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 presidential election in which Biden, the Democratic challenger, defeated Trump. “We’re coming after you, whether it’s criminal or civil. We’ll find out. But yes, we are warning you all.”
Patel first came to prominence in Trump’s inner circle as an outspoken critic of the FBI’s investigation into possible ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
As a staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, then chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes, a Trump loyalist, Patel helped write a four-page report detailing mistakes the Justice Department made in obtaining an arrest warrant. monitoring a former Trump campaign adviser.
The document, which became colloquially known as the “Nunes memo,” was released after strong objections from Wray and Justice Department leaders.
Another report from the inspector general major problems identified under FBI supervision during the Russia investigation, but also concluded that the investigation was opened for a legitimate purpose and found no evidence that the FBI had acted with partisan motives in conducting the investigation.
Patel has played a role in several legal investigations into Trump.
He appeared before the Washington grand jury investigating Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2022, after being granted immunity for his testimony.
He also testified at a court hearing in Colorado about Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the lead-up to the violent January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Patel, who was chief of staff to the then-secretary of defense at the time of the riot, testified that Trump had preemptively authorized 10,000 to 20,000 troops to deploy days before the attack. But a Colorado court later ruled that Patel was “no credible witness” on this subject.
Shortly after Trump left office, Patel launched Fight with Kash, an organization that funds defamation lawsuits and sells a wide range of merchandise, including branded socks and other clothing with the “K$H” logo.
Patel has also turned to publishing. He wrote a book called “Government Gangsters,” which is part memoir and part battle against the so-called deep state. Patel collaborated with Bannon to release a film version. Patel has also written children’s books in which Trump plays the lead role: in “The Plot Against the King,” a thinly disguised Hillary Clinton plays the villain who goes after “King Donald,” while Kash plays a wizard who thwarts her plans.
Patel pitched for a variety of products marketed to Trump supporters. One nutritional supplement he is promoting claims to be a “detox system” for the COVID vaccine.
Records show Patel has made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year advising Trump-related entities, including a political action committee and the company that owns Truth Social.
Patel helped produce “And Justice For All,” a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner sung by a group of men imprisoned for their role in the Capitol riot.
Patel’s candidacy has drawn support from prominent Trump supporters, including people who support the president-elect’s agenda at the FBI and Justice Department, and the idea of using his election victory to retaliate against his perceived opponents.
He is a regular guest on right-wing podcasts and livestream online shows by Bannon, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.
Even as Trump was reportedly considering more conventional choices for the job whose prospects for confirmation were seen as more certain, some of the president-elect’s conservative supporters actively pushed Patel’s candidacy and discredited other potential selections, including Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and ex-Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
A Trump aide recently said on social media that Rogers did not get the job.