Who is Kash Patel, the Trump loyalist tapped to run the FBI?

United States President-elect Donald Trump has nominated one of his most loyal aides, Kash Patel, to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), drawing a sharp reaction from critics, who question his qualifications and impartiality to hold the position.

Patel, an outspoken critic of the FBI like his boss, has been entrusted to lead the country’s most important federal law enforcement agency.

The 44-year-old has steadfastly promoted the idea of the existence of a “deep state” and the belief the agency is biased against Trump. He has pushed to overhaul the agency.

With the nomination of Patel, Trump also signals that he is preparing to carry out his threat to oust Christopher Wray, a Republican he first appointed in 2017 and whose 10-year term does not expire until 2027.

What do we know about Kash Patel?

Kashyap Pramod Vinod Patel, commonly known as Kash, was born in the city of New York, a child of immigrant parents originally from the Indian state of Gujarat.

Patel graduated in law in 2005 from Pace University after earning a certificate in international law from the University College London a year prior. Before that, he finished his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and history from the University of Richmond.

According to his US Department of Defense biography, Patel is “a life-long ice hockey player, coach, and fan”.

As a 40-year-old lawyer with little government experience, Patel joined the administration of then-President Trump in 2019, rising rapidly from the ranks by showing what some media described as his complete devotion to Trump.

“Each new title set off new alarms,” according to The Atlantic describing Patel. Once, then-CIA Director Gina Haspel had reportedly threatened to resign after Trump said he wanted to appoint Patel as deputy CIA director.

Patel served in key roles during Trump’s first term, including overseeing the counterterrorism division at the National Security Council and later serving as chief of staff at the Department of Defense.

Before his White House roles, Patel worked on the House Intelligence Committee in Congress, where he played a significant role in the investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Shortly after Trump left office, Patel launched Fight with Kash, an organisation that funds defamation lawsuits and peddles a wide variety of merchandise, including branded socks and other clothing with the “K$H” logo.

Patel has also authored children’s books that lionise Trump – The Plot Against the King – featuring a thinly veiled Hillary Clinton as the villain going after “King Donald” while Kash plays a wizard who thwarts her plans.

He has been a regular guest on right-wing podcasts and livestream online shows hosted by Bannon, Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.

In a post on Truth Social network, Trump described Patel as a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter”.

Why Trump tapped Kash for the role?

Trump has frequently voiced distrust of the FBI, accusing it of political bias, particularly after its search of his Mar-a-Lago
resort for classified documents he allegedly stored illegally.

Patel found common cause with Trump over their shared scepticism of government surveillance and the “deep state” – a pejorative catchall used by Trump to refer to government bureaucracy.

He wrote another book – Government Gangsters – which is part memoir and part screed against the so-called deep state.

Patel’s candidacy has won 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 electoral win to pursue retaliation against his perceived adversaries.

Trump said Patel would restore “fidelity, bravery and integrity” to the agency. Under Patel, Trump said, the FBI would “end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the border”.

Patel was part of a small group of supporters during Trump’s recent criminal trial in New York who accompanied him to the courthouse, where he told reporters that Trump was the victim of an “unconstitutional circus”.

He also testified at a Colorado court hearing related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.

Patel, who at the time of the riot was chief of staff to the then-acting defence secretary, testified that Trump had pre-emptively authorised 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers to deploy days before the attack. But a Colorado court later found that Patel was “not a credible witness” on the topic.

An October 2024 Atlantic article suggested, Patel “appeared singularly focused on pleasing Trump”.

“Even in an administration full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his devotion.”

Following Trump’s announcement on Saturday, Gerry Connolly, a senior Democratic member of the House of Representatives, called Patel a “zealot”.

“Out of a sea of unqualified, dangerous, and downright bizarre nominations, this is perhaps the worst,” Connolly said in a post on X.

What is Patel’s stand on the FBI bureaucracy?

Patel has signalled through interviews and public statements a determination to upend the FBI and radically reshape its mission.

He has called for dramatically reducing its footprint and limiting its authority, as well as going after government officials who disclose information to reporters.

In an interview earlier this year on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast, Patel promised to sever the FBI’s intelligence-gathering activities from the rest of its mission, and said he would “shut down” the bureau’s headquarters building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state’”.

In a separate interview with conservative strategist Steve Bannon, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media”.

What was his role in the FBI’s Russia investigation?

Patel first came to prominence in Trump’s orbit as an outspoken critic of the FBI’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

As a staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired at the time by Representative Devin Nunes, a Trump loyalist, Patel helped author a four-page report that detailed what it said were errors the Justice Department made in obtaining a warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser.

The document, which came to be colloquially known as the “Nunes memo”, was released over vigorous objections from Wray and Justice Department leaders.

A subsequent inspector general report identified significant problems with FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation, but it also concluded that the inquiry had been opened for a legitimate purpose and found no evidence that the FBI had acted with partisan motives in conducting the inquiry.

A 2020 report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the Kremlin launched an aggressive effort to meddle in the 2016 presidential contest on behalf of Trump.