Kash Patel, a loyal supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, is seen on a monitor behind Attorney General Merrick Garland as Garland testifies before the Republican controlled House Judiciary Committee in Washington on June 4. Trump nominated Patel as FBI director on Saturday. File Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE
Nov. 30 (UPI) — President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday nominated controversial political ally and fierce supporter Kash Patel to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The announcement means Trump plans to fire current FBI director Christopher Wray from the post, seven years after hiring him.
“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Trump wrote 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.”
Patel, he said, “will work under our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI.”
His nomination would require confirmation by the Senate.
Patel, 44, served in Trump’s first administration as Deputy Assistant to the President and “senior director for counterterrorism” on the White House’s National Security Council as well as chief of staff for the Defense Department in the months after Trump lost the 2020 election.
During that time, Patel urged Trump not to accept his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and echoed his baseless claims that the election was rigged.
Before that he served as key staff member for Rep. Devin Nunes, the former top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, where he coordinated an effort to discredit the FBI’s investigation into connections between the Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian operatives.
During the last four years he has hosted right-wing radio shows and made podcast appearances where he has voiced unwavering support for some of Trump’s most controversial policies, frequently denouncing federal employees, journalists and others deemed disloyal to Trump’s agenda and calling them members of “the deep state.”
“We’ve got to put in all American patriots top to bottom,” Patel told fellow Trump loyalist Steve Bannon in a post-election interview, vowing that he other allies “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. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’re going to figure that out — but yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
His nomination drew immediate public condemnation from at least one former Justice Department official.
“Continuing in the line of ‘anti’ nominees for various posts, Trump announces firebrand FBI hater Kash Patel for FBI director,” former U.S. Attorney and deputy assistant Attorney General Harry Litman wrote on X, comparing him to former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from consideration as Trump’s Attorney General choice under fire.
“He is the analogue to Gaetz — hard to imagine a single more threatening and adversarial figure for the FBI in the entire country,” Litman said.
Earlier this week as speculation mounted about Patel’s nomination, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe told CNN that “no part of the FBI’s mission is safe with Kash Patel in any position of leadership in the FBI,” adding, “If you enter into that position with nothing more than a desire to disrupt and destroy the organization, there is a lot of damage someone like Kash Patel could do.”
A statement released by the FBI to media outlets the following Trump’s announcement did not address whether Wray would step down from the post.
“Every day, the men and women of the F.B.I. continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats,” the statement said. “Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the F.B.I., the people we do the work with and the people we do the work for.”