Media Critics May Be Targets if Kash Patel Leads Federal Bureau of Investigation

Kash Patel, whom U.S. President elect Donald Trump nominated to lead the FBI, says he will pursue government and other "gangsters"

December 6, 2024

Kash Patel is expected to be confirmed by the United States Senate as the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Republican Senator John Cornyn told radio host Hugh Hewitt this week. "People I know and who I trust speak well of him and I’m looking forward to meeting with him,” Cornyn said.

Last week, President elect Donald J. Trump posted on Truth Social that he was "proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.”

In 2023, Patel published a book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy. The book is about "A sinister cabal of corrupt law enforcement personnel, intelligence agents, and military officials at the highest levels of government (who) plotted to overthrow a president...This isn’t the synopsis of a fictional spy thriller. This is what is actually happening in the United States government." The book summary continues, Patel, “pulls back the curtain on the Deep State, revealing the major players and tactics within the permanent government bureaucracy, which has spent decades stripping power away from the American people and their elected leaders."

Trump praised the book as “A brilliant roadmap highlighting every corrupt actor, to ultimately return our agencies and departments to work for the American People…we will use this blueprint to help us take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government!” The book, which was a Wall Street Journal bestseller, has received 4.8 stars from nearly 1,800 reviewers on Amazon.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media," Patel told the War Room podcast of Steve Bannon, a Trump ally. "Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But, yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”

Kashyap (Kash) Pramod Patel served as the Chief of Staff of Defense Secretary Chris Miller during part of the last Trump Administration, 2016-2020. In 2020, Trump considered naming Patel as the deputy director of the FBI and the director of the CIA, which decisions Trump abandoned after strong opposition from his senior officials.

Earlier, Patel served as the Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. He also served as Principal Deputy to the Acting Director of National Intelligence. In 2020, in this capacity, he helped “lead efforts to remove senior career intelligence officers whom Mr. Trump felt didn’t support his efforts to pursue adversaries,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

Before joining the Trump Administration, Patel was the National Security Advisor and Senior Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In 2017, while in this role, Patel was reported to be the main author of “The Nunes Memo,” a document alleging that top officials of the Justice Department allegedly carried out surveillance of Trump’s team members during the transition from President Barack Obama’s administration.

Earlier, Patel was a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice and its Liaison Officer to Joint Special Operations Command. He began his career as a public defender, trying cases ranging from murder, to narco-trafficking and financial crimes in jury trials in state and federal courts.

A native of New York, Patel completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond, in Virginia, before earning his law degree from Pace University, New York. He got a Certificate in International Law from University College, London, and is an ice hockey player and coach.

Patel was born and raised in Garden City, Long Island, New York. His parents have family ties in Gujarat, India. Patel’s mother is from Tanzania and father from Uganda, NDTV reported. In 1970, his parents immigrated to the U.S. via Canada.

"Mr. Patel’s ongoing dissemination of disinformation and overt threats against our free press and against perceived political opponents of Mr. Trump’s—premised on false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election—are beyond the pale. It would make a mockery of the rule of law for him to become one of the nation’s chief law enforcement officers," the Legal Defense Fund said in a statement. The fund is an an "organization fighting for racial justice."

"Trump’s lawyers have already threatened or taken legal action against" the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, ABC, Penguin Random House, and others, notes David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker.

Today, the National Police Association (NPA) issued a statement "proudly (expressing) our full support for Kash Patel's nomination to serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kash Patel's extensive career in national security, law enforcement, and public service has demonstrated his unwavering commitment to upholding the rule of law, defending justice, and protecting the American people."

Patel's nomination has to be approved by the U.S. Senate. "Even among Trump loyalists," CNN reports, "Patel is widely viewed as a controversial figure and relentless self-promoter whose value to the president-elect largely derives from a shared disdain for established power in Washington."

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton compared Patel to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s leader of secret police, the NKVD, telling CNN: “The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0.”

"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 following the announcement. "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."