President-elect Donald Trump wants Kash Patel to be the next head of the FBI.
Patel, a close Trump ally, served in the first Trump administration in various positions, including chief of staff to the secretary at the Department of Defense and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. He started his career as a public defender in Florida and later became a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice.
Calling Patel a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social that Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.”
“It is the honor of a lifetime to be nominated by President Trump to serve as Director of the FBI,” Patel said in a statement to NBC News. “Together, we will restore integrity, accountability, and equal justice to our justice system and return the FBI to its rightful mission: protecting the American people.”
Patel has said he would shake-up the FBI.
“The biggest problem the FBI has had, has come out of its intel shops,” said Patel, per Reuters. “I’d break that component out of it. I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.” He said he would mobilize the people who work in the building to make them cops.
In order to replace sitting FBI director Chris Wray, who Trump also nominated, he would have to fire Wray, or Wray would have to step down. FBI directors have a 10-year term and Wray’s is not set to expire until 2027. Trump also fired FBI director James Comey before his 10-year term was up.
The role of FBI director does require Senate confirmation. It’s not clear whether or not Patel will have the support necessary.
“Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s top advisers in recent weeks warned him it would be problematic to nominate Kash Patel, one of his most loyal foot soldiers, to lead the FBI, even as it became increasingly clear Trump was leaning in that direction,” reported The Wall Street Journal.
Some Senate Republicans have already indicated their support for Patel.
“I gotta say, all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, people pulling their hair out, are the people dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI and clean out the corrupted partisans who sadly have burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” He called Patel “a very strong nominee to take on the partisan corruption in the FBI.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, congratulated Patel using his BasedMikeLee account and also said, “We all need Kash now! #EndFISAAbuse.”
After Trump announced Patel’s nomination, a spokesperson for the FBI told Reuters, “Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.”
Before becoming prominent in Trump’s orbit, Patel was an aide to former Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California. Patel earned his law degree from Pace University and originally comes from Long Island.
Patel published a book that was something of a memoir in 2023 called “Government Gangsters.” Trump called it a must-read and “the roadmap to end the Deep State’s reign,” in a post on Truth Social.
Patel’s trip to Utah
Patel traveled to the Beehive State last year to campaign for Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, who was then running as a Republican for Sen. Mitt Romney’s open seat. Rep. John Curtis ended up winning the election.
Patel and Staggs sat down for an interview with the Deseret News in December last year. During the interview, Patel said that the first Trump administration didn’t have “the allies we needed to push forward President Trump’s agenda when it came to shutting down the border, taking on the drug cartels, shutting down fentanyl, taking on Iran, China, rolling out our sanctions — multilateral efforts along with our tariff efforts — along with our national security mission of basically ending the forever wars and wiping out terrorists.”
He also said he thinks fentanyl should be treated like a national security issue.
Shortly after Trump announced his intention to nominate Patel, Staggs took to X to ask both Lee and Curtis to confirm Patel and in a separate post, congratulated him on the nod from Trump.