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Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI and an ardent supporter of the president-elect, has vowed to help dismantle the same organization he wants to lead.

The former public defender is widely viewed as a controversial figure whose value to the president-elect stems largely from their shared disdain for established power in Washington.

Putting him in charge of the FBI would require current Director Christopher Wray, appointed by Trump in 2017, to be forced out before his 10-year term expires in three years – a future move that has already drawn bipartisan criticism .

The FBI director also faces confirmation by the Senate, whose members are already preparing how they will navigate a series of unorthodox Trump decisions.

According to a source familiar with the discussions, some Trump confidants late last week believed it was a “fight” between Patel and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey over who the president-elect would choose as FBI director.

But some in Trump’s inner circle are not happy with either option, the source said, adding that if Trump had not made a decision by then, a third, unknown candidate would likely have emerged in the next week or two.

Patel in particular was not considered a consensus for the post, the source said, noting that it always depended on what Trump wanted and possibly the last person he spoke to on a given day.

In his 2023 book “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel lays out his arguments against what he calls “the Deep State” — an amorphous term he believes was chosen Includes leaders. Journalists, Big Tech tycoons and “members of the unelected bureaucracy” – called for “a comprehensive purge” of the Justice Department, which they say has protected senior members of the Democratic Party while launching unwarranted attacks on Republicans and their allies.

Trump has praised the book as a “plan to take back the White House and remove these gangsters from across the government,” according to promotional posts.

Patel has heavily criticized the FBI, calling in a September podcast interview for the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to be demolished and turned into a “deep state museum.”

“The FBI’s footprint has gotten so damn big,” Patel said on “The Shawn Ryan Show,” criticizing the agency’s intelligence operations.

During the interview, Patel also mocked the FBI over its 2022 search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, which led to charges being filed against the former president for storing classified documents. The judge overseeing the case ultimately dismissed the charges against Trump after finding that the special counsel had been appointed unlawfully.

In a 2023 interview with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, Patel said the Justice Department under Trump would deal with media figures.

“We need to install all-American patriots from top to bottom,” Patel said of the Justice Department, adding that under Trump the department “will go out and find the conspirators, not just in the government but in the media.”

“Yes, we will go after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election – we will go after you,” he said.

When Trump was reportedly considering naming Patel FBI deputy director during his first term, former Attorney General Bill Barr wrote in his memoirs that Patel had “virtually no experience that would prepare him for service at the highest levels of the world’s leaders.” Law enforcement agency,” adding that Patel would become the FBI’s No. 2 “because of my body.”

The senators who must confirm Patel were largely divided along party lines when the announcement was made.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Patel “an unqualified loyalist,” and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said Sunday that Patel’s “only qualification is … he agrees with Donald Trump that the Justice Department should serve.” .” to punish, imprison and intimidate Donald Trump’s political opponents.”

New Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, meanwhile, sharply criticized Wray, the current FBI director, saying in a social media post that he had “failed” during his tenure. But he added that Patel “has to prove to Congress” that he will do better than Wray.

Patel, who describes himself as a native New Yorker, was raised Hindu by his immigrant parents, according to his book. He wrote that he grew up apolitical but became more right-wing during his college years at the University of Richmond. This, he wrote, made his later career in public defense a “strange coincidence”; He described his colleagues in the field as “the far left of the left wing.”

Patel graduated from Pace University with a law degree in 2005 and then worked as a public defender in Florida for about nine years, according to his book. He served in the public defender’s office in Miami-Dade County and the Southern District of Florida.

According to his book, Patel then worked as a federal prosecutor in the DOJ’s National Security Division. He called it a “dream job” for any young lawyer.

At the Justice Department, Patel oversaw the prosecution of criminals linked to al-Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorist groups, according to a Defense Department profile. He also served as the U.S. Department of Justice’s liaison officer to the Joint Special Operations Command on operations against “high-value terrorist targets.”

Patel has claimed to be the “lead prosecutor” in the DOJ’s case against those who carried out the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. But The New York Times reported in October that Patel was a junior staffer at the time and was not part of the negotiating team.

In 2018, Patel served as an aide to then-Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Patel played a key role in Nunes’ efforts to discredit the FBI’s Russia investigation into the Trump campaign, including a controversial secret memo that alleged FBI abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against Trump advisers.

In 2019, Patel worked for Trump on the National Security Council before becoming chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller at the end of Trump’s first term. Trump briefly floated Patel as a possible replacement for then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, whom he fired after the 2020 election. Patel was also tapped to lead the Pentagon’s transition efforts for Trump’s first term and oversaw coordination with the incoming Biden-Harris administration.

Patel was also involved in the confidential documents case against Trump, which has now been dismissed. In the summer of 2022, he became one of Trump’s appointees to interact with the National Archives and the Justice Department as both agencies sought to repossess confidential documents that Trump had retained during his presidency. Patel was one of the few advisers in Trump’s post-presidency entourage who could face legal risks related to the Mar-a-Lago situation, CNN reported at the time, and he appeared before the federal grand jury investigating the case. Patel has not been charged in the case.

In 2021, he also met with the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol and responded to the attack.

In a statement at the time, Patel said he appeared before the panel “to answer questions to the best of his ability.”

After Trump: Children’s Books and Foundations

Patel, considered a tireless self-promoter even among Trump loyalists, has used his perceived closeness to the president-elect to bolster his public image through books and positions at foundations and think tanks.

Since the first Trump administration, Patel has written a trilogy of children’s books called “The Plot Against the King.” The first book tells the story of “Hillary Queenton and her shady knight,” who “spread lies that King Donald cheated to become king.” The second tells the story of the “search for the truth and the discovery of evidence of a terrible plan to elect Sleepy Joe instead of King Donald on election day.” And his latest book, published in September, tells the story of the “MAGA King” on a journey to “defeat Comma-la-la-la and reclaim his throne.”

Patel founded Fight With Kash — now the Kash Foundation — which, according to the organization, is “dedicated to providing financial assistance to active military members and veterans, legal defense funds and educational programs.”

Patel – and his foundation – came under scrutiny last year after two of Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan’s witnesses in his mission to prove the federal government was being “weaponized” against conservatives said Patel had theirs Legal fees paid.

According to his foundation, Kash also sits on the board of Trump Media Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s social media platform Truth Social.

Kash was also a senior fellow for national security and intelligence at the Center for Renewing America, a think tank founded by Russell Vought – Trump’s pick to head the Office of Management and Budget and a lead author of the conservative blueprint Project 2025.

CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Holmes Lybrand, Evan Perez, Kristen Holmes, Morgan Rimmer and Jalen Beckford contributed to this report.