US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed one of his most loyal aides, Kash Patel, to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sparking sharp reactions from critics who questioned his qualifications and impartiality to hold the post.

Patel, an outspoken critic of the FBI like his boss, was put in charge of the country’s most important federal law enforcement agency.

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

By nominating Patel, Trump is also signaling that he is preparing to make good on his threat to oust Christopher Wray, a Republican he first appointed in 2017 and whose 10-year term doesn’t 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 to immigrant parents originally from the Indian state of Gujarat.

Patel graduated from Pace University with a law degree in 2005, having earned a certificate in international law from University College London a year earlier. He previously completed his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and history at the University of Richmond.

According to his Department of Defense biography, Patel is “a lifelong hockey player, coach and fan.”

A 40-year-old lawyer with little government experience, Patel joined then-President Trump’s administration in 2019 and quickly rose through the ranks by showing what some media outlets described as his complete devotion to Trump.

“Each new title triggered new alarms,” describes The Atlantic Patel. Then-CIA Director Gina Haspel reportedly once threatened to resign after Trump said he wanted to name Patel deputy CIA director.

Patel held key positions during Trump’s first term, including heading the counterterrorism division at the National Security Council and later serving as chief of staff at the Defense Department.

Before serving in the White House, Patel served on the Congressional Intelligence Committee, where he played a key role in the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Shortly after Trump left office, Patel founded Fight with Kash, an organization that funds defamation lawsuits and sells a wide range of goods, including branded socks and other clothing bearing the “K$H” logo.

Patel has also written children’s books that glorify Trump – “The Plot Against the King” – with a thinly veiled Hillary Clinton as the villain who targets “King Donald” while Kash plays a wizard who foils her plans.

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

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

Why did Trump choose Kash for the role?

Trump has frequently expressed his distrust of the FBI and accused it of political bias, particularly after the search of his Mar-a-Lago
Recourse to secret documents he allegedly kept illegally.

Patel found common cause with Trump over their shared skepticism of government surveillance and the “deep state” — a derogatory catch-all term Trump uses for government bureaucracy.

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

Patel’s candidacy has won the support of prominent Trump supporters, including people who support the president-elect’s agenda at the FBI and Justice Department and support the idea of ​​using his election victory to retaliate against his perceived opponents.

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

Patel was among 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 court hearing in Colorado related to Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the lead-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Patel, who was chief of staff to the then-acting defense secretary at the time of the insurrection, testified that Trump had preemptively authorized the deployment of 10,000 to 20,000 troops days before the attack. But a Colorado court later found that Patel was “not a credible witness” on the issue.

An October 2024 Atlantic article said that Patel “appeared to be solely focused on pleasing Trump.”

“Even in a government full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his dedication.”

After 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.

How does Patel feel about the FBI bureaucracy?

Patel has signaled through interviews and public statements his determination to turn the FBI on its head and radically transform its mission.

He called for a drastic reduction in its footprint and limits on its powers, as well as the prosecution of government officials who leak information to reporters.

In an interview earlier this year on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast, Patel pledged to separate the FBI’s intelligence activities from the rest of its mission and said he would “close” the FBI’s headquarters building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. and “reopen the next day as a museum of the ‘Deep State’.”

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

What role did he play in the FBI’s Russia investigation?

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

As a staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which was then chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes, a Trump supporter, Patel helped prepare a four-page report detailing the Justice Department’s alleged failures in obtaining a surveillance warrant from a former Trump campaign adviser.

The document, which became known colloquially as the Nunes memo, was released over strong objections from Wray and senior Justice Department officials.

A later inspector general report found significant problems with FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation, but also concluded that the investigation had been initiated for a legitimate purpose and found no evidence that the FBI was involved had acted for partisan motives when conducting the investigation.

A 2020 report by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the Kremlin made aggressive attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign on Trump’s behalf.