WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has named Kash Patel as FBI director, turning to a fierce ally to topple America’s premier law enforcement agency and rid the government of “conspirators.” It’s the latest bombshell Trump has launched against the Washington establishment and a test of how far Senate Republicans will go in confirming his nominees.
“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Trump said Saturday night on Truth Social. “Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator and fighter for ‘America First’ who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people.
The choice is consistent with Trump’s view that government law enforcement and intelligence agencies require radical transformation and his stated desire for retaliation against his perceived adversaries. It shows how Trump, still furious over years of federal investigations that clouded his first administration and later led to his indictment, is placing close allies at the top of the FBI and Justice Department who he says , will protect it rather than scrutinize it.
Patel “played a central role in uncovering the Russia-Russia hoax, presenting himself as a defender of truth, accountability and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday evening.
It remains unclear whether Patel could be confirmed, even by a Republican-led Senate, although Trump has also raised the possibility of using recess appointments to advance his selections.
Patel would replace Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 but quickly fell out of favor with the president and his allies. Although the position came with a 10-year term, Wray’s removal was not unexpected given Trump’s long-standing public criticism of him and the FBI, including after a search of his property in Florida in search of classified documents and two investigations that resulted in his indictment.
Patel’s past proposals, if implemented, would result in abrupt changes for an agency charged not only with investigating violations of federal law but also with protecting the country from terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and other threats.
He called for significantly reducing the FBI’s footprint, a prospect that markedly sets him apart from previous directors who have sought additional resources for the bureau, and suggested closing the bureau’s headquarters in Washington and “reopening it the next day in as an FBI museum. Deep State” – Trump’s pejorative catch-all for the federal bureaucracy.
And although the Justice Department in 2021 ended the practice of secretly seizing journalists’ phone records during a leak investigation, Patel said he intends to aggressively track down journalists. government officials who leak information to journalists and to change the law to make it easier to prosecute journalists.
During an interview with Steve Bannon last December, Patel said he and others would “go out and find the conspirators not only in the government but also in the media.”
“We’re going to go after 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 challenger Biden Democrat, defeated Trump. “We will pursue you, whether criminally or civilly. We’ll find out. But yes, we are warning you all.
Trump also announced Saturday that he would nominate Sheriff Chad Chronister, the top law enforcement official in Hillsborough County, Florida, to serve as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Chronicer is another Florida Republican appointee in the Trump administration. He has worked for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office since 1992 and became Hillsborough County’s top law enforcement officer in 2017. He also worked closely with Trump’s chosen attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Patel, the child of Indian immigrants and a former public defender, spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before coming to the attention of the Trump administration as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on information.
The committee’s chairman at the time, Rep. Devin Nunes, Republican of California, was a strong Trump ally who assigned Patel to lead the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Patel ultimately helped to write what became known as the “Nunes Memo,” a four-page report that detailed how the Justice Department erred in obtaining a warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign volunteer. The release of the memo was met with vehement opposition from Wray and the Justice Department, who warned that it would be unwise to release sensitive information.
A subsequent inspector general report identified significant problems in FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation, but also found no evidence that the FBI acted for partisan reasons in the conduct of the investigation. is investigating and said there was a legitimate basis to open the investigation.
The Russia investigation fueled Patel’s suspicions of the FBI, the intelligence community and the media, which he called “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen.” Taking advantage of compliance lapses in the FBI’s use of a spying program that officials consider vital to national security, Patel accused the FBI of “weaponizing” its surveillance powers against innocent Americans.
Patel parlayed that work into influential administrative roles at the National Security Council and later as acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller’s chief of staff.
He remained a loyal Trump lieutenant even after leaving office, accompanying the president-elect to court during his criminal trial in New York and telling reporters that Trump was the victim of a “constitutional circus.”
In addition to his 2023 memoir, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel has published two children’s books that praise Trump. “The Plot Against the King” features a thinly veiled Hillary Clinton as the villain taking on “King Donald,” while Kash, a wizard called the Distinguished Discoverer, exposes a nefarious plot.
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
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