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President-elect Trump on Saturday nominated longtime ally Kash Patel to lead the FBI, tapping a figure who has pledged to reform the bureau.
In doing so, Trump signaled his plan to remove FBI Director Christopher Way, whom Trump nominated to a 10-year term in 2017.
Patel held numerous national security roles during the first Trump administration but would be a new face at the FBI.
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Here are five things to know about Patel.
Patel has been a staunch ally to Trump, stretching back to the FBI investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign.
Patel got his start in politics as a staffer to then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), working as an adviser on the House Intelligence Committee.
Patel played a key role there in seeking to discredit the committee Democrats’ investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia. That included authoring a report analyzing FBI and Justice Department responses in their own investigations of Russian election interference.
His criticism of the investigation is a frequent theme in his writings, including in a children's book.
“I discovered a coordinated effort to use the Russiagate hoax as a way to attack then-President Trump,” Patel wrote in an April email.
“It was a big hoax!”
Patel regularly attacks a “deep state” that he blames for having “weaponized the government for their own political and personal agenda.”
Much of his commentary about alleged government wrongdoing has been focused on both the investigations of Trump, as well as the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters.
“The FBI goes after J6ers like terrorists,” he wrote in a March email.
He has also crafted his own list of “government gangsters” that includes Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and former CIA Director Gina Haspel.
Patel has called for using the power of the bureau and the Justice Department to prosecute journalists.
“We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly — we’ll figure that out,” he said during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast.
Patel has called for major shifts at the FBI, starting on his first day as director.
“I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on Day One and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I'd take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops,” Patel said.
Patel, through his eponymous foundation, has elevated several whistleblowers who have made claims of wrongdoing by the FBI.
“I am on a mission to root out all government gangsters from positions within our bureaus,” he wrote in a July email.
Patel has also been a critic of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), including Section 702, which allows the government to spy on foreigners when they are located abroad.
The FBI relied on a separate provision of the law to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Nonetheless, many FISA critics have called for reforms to the law, including requiring a warrant to review information from Americans communicating with foreigners being surveilled.
During last year’s battle to reauthorize Section 702, Patel argued for letting the powerful spy tool lapse. Congress will once again weigh its renewal this coming year.
“We call upon Congress to let it lapse – better to have no authority for 7 days or so than another 365 days of spying on Trump and his supporters,” Patel said at the time in a statement alongside Richard Grenell, who briefly served as director of national intelligence in Trump’s first administration.
On Jan. 6, Patel was serving as chief of staff to then-acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who was appointed to the role about two months prior, the day after Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
His short time at the Pentagon earned scrutiny from the now-disbanded Jan. 6 committee, which asked him to sit for an interview after writing, “there is substantial reason to believe that you have additional documents and information relevant to understanding the role played by the Department of Defense and the White House in preparing for and responding to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as documents and information related to your personal involvement in planning for events on Jan. 6 and the peaceful transfer of power.”
Patel ultimately sat with the panel’s investigators on Dec. 9, after its slate of summer hearings in 2021.
Patel denied any wrongdoing or improper actions related to the attack but has complained about how the Justice Department handled cases involving the rioters.
He’s been highly critical of that work, listing California Democrat Adam Schiff, who is moving from the House to the Senate beginning next month, as a “government gangster” and calling former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) “the main architect of this disinformation campaign.”
In a May email, he wrote that Cheney “and her band of miscreants suppressed evidence that completely exonerates the Jan. 6 defendants from their ginned-up charge of insurrection.”
Patel has written several books, including one titled “Government Gangsters.”
A synopsis for the book references “a sinister cabal” that “plotted to overthrow a president,” while Patel “reveals how we can defeat the Deep State, reassert self-government, and restore our democracy.”
Patel is also the author of a children’s book, “The Plot Against The King,” that advertises itself as telling the story behind “one of our nation’s biggest injustices.”
The book portrays Patel as a wizard while the king clearly represents Trump, facing threats from “Hillary Queenton,” while others such as Nunes and Schiff make appearances.