Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s nominee to direct the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), once declared that his first act in power would be to “shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state”.
Trump appears to agree with the sentiment, but not the solution: why shut the FBI down when you can use it to harass your political enemies?
Trump plans to install Patel as FBI director to replace Christopher Wray, whom he appointed in 2017 after dismissing his predecessor, James Comey. Patel made a name for himself in Trump’s first term as deputy assistant to the president, senior director for counter-terrorism at the National Security Council and deputy acting director of national intelligence. Yet according to critics, his primary credential to lead the FBI is simple: he’s a devoted Trump loyalist.
Wray is in the seventh year of a ten-year term, an unusually long tenure designed, not unironically, to insulate FBI directors from political pressure. Wray has said he will resign before Trump takes office.
Trump’s grudge against the FBI began with its investigation into alleged collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia. It deepened with the bureau’s probe into Trump’s role in to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and escalated further with the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, to investigate his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Most recently, Trump advocates have attacked Wray for questioning whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit Trump during his first assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. The FBI later clarified that it was a bullet. Trump’s grudging acceptance of the acknowledgement suggests that it did little to earn his favour.
Patel not only lacks the typical credentials of an FBI director, but even within Trump’s orbit, many have have voiced doubts about his suitability. Patel’s former supervisor (and deputy national security advisor) Charles Kupperman called Patel “untrustworthy” and “absolutely unqualified”. When Trump considered Patel as FBI director during his first term, then Attorney General Bill Barr said it would happen “over my dead body”.
But Patel’s résumé perfectly aligns with the type of people Trump seeks to surround himself in his second term: loyalists turned political executioners. Patel speaks breathlessly about the need to target members of the media, who Trump calls the “enemy of the people,” and government officials, who he perceives as being part of the Trump resistance.
In 2023 Patel published a book titled Government Gangsters. In it, he listed specific names of “deep state” members who he thought Trump should go after. On a podcast with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, Patel said that high-ranking officials who weren’t subordinate to Trump, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, should have to pay a price or face jail time.
Concerning Trump’s adversaries, Patel has insisted: “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly – we’ll figure that out.”
Some within the current White House believe that, as FBI director, Patel could lead a witch hunt into Joe Biden’s family, close allies and associates. It’s one justification for why Biden pardoned his son Hunter, and why others in Biden’s inner circle are encouraging him to preemptively pardon Democrats who could face Patel’s wrath.
Despite concerns, Trump’s soon-to-be vice president J.D. Vance has said that Patel is in a “very good spot” for confirmation by the Senate, which requires a simple majority. Compared to other nominees like Pete Hegseth who is currently facing the political test of his life to become secretary of defense, Patel may be in for a less rocky confirmation than some expect.
If confirmed, Patel will enter the FBI’s Washington headquarters at a time when faith in the bureau is sinking, thanks in no small part to Trump’s relentless attacks on it. According to Gallup polling, the proportion of Americans who think that the FBI is doing an “excellent” or “good” job has dropped from 59% in 2014 to 41% today – the lowest percentage this century. It’s also down to 26% among Republicans.
Trump wants Patel to clean house and wants a FBI director whose thinking is in line with the White House. But for now, much of the Maga movement sees the FBI as reflecting the kind of “deep state” insidiousness that Trump promises to cure.
That attitude shows just how far the left and right have swapped opinions toward some of America’s most powerful institutions such as the FBI. Republicans now vow to purge Washington institutions that progressives once criticised, while Democrats defend institutions that conservatives once championed.
Under Patel, expect the J. Edgar Hoover building to be writing history, not encasing it. Apparently, the last thing Washington needs is another museum.
This article was updated on December 11 when Christopher Wray announced he would resign.
Thomas Gift does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
