Trump appoints loyalist Kash Patel as FBI director

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Kash Patel as FBI director, making him a fierce ally in his bid to overthrow America’s premier law enforcement agency and rid the government of perceived “conspirators.” It’s the latest bombshell Trump has thrown at Washington and a test of how far Senate Republicans will go to confirm his nominee.

“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will be the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” President Trump told Truth Social on Saturday night. “Kash is an accomplished lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ fighter who has dedicated his career to exposing corruption, upholding justice and protecting the American people.”

The choice is consistent with Trump’s view that the government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies need radical change and his comments about retaliation against supposed enemies. It shows that Trump, still furious over the years of federal investigations that rocked his first administration and later led to indictments, is moving into the position of close allies of the FBI and Justice Department, whom he believes will protect him rather than scrutinize him.

“Patel has played a pivotal role in exposing Russia, Russia, Russian fraud, and championing truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday night.

President Trump has floated the possibility of using a recess appointment to advance his pick, but it is unclear whether Patel would be able to win confirmation even in the Republican-led Senate.

Patel replaces Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 but quickly fell out of favor with the president and his allies. Although the position is for a 10-year term, Wray’s dismissal was unexpected given that President Trump has long been a public critic of him and the FBI after he was indicted in two investigations that led to a search of his Florida property for classified documents. It wasn’t something I couldn’t do.

Patel’s past proposals, if implemented, would mark spastic changes to the agency tasked with protecting the nation from terrorist attacks, foreign espionage and other threats, as well as investigating violations of federal law.

He called for a dramatic reduction in the FBI’s footprint, a view that differs dramatically from previous directors who sought additional resources for the agency, and who would close FBI headquarters in Washington and “reopen the next day as an FBI museum.” suggested. “Deep state” — Trump’s derogatory catch-all term for federal officials.

And although the Justice Department in 2021 ended the practice of secretly confiscating reporters’ phone records during leak investigations, Patel wants to aggressively seek out government officials who leak information to reporters and is pushing for laws to make it easier to sue journalists. They said they plan to revise it.

In an interview with Steve Bannon last December, Patel said he and others would “find the conspirators, not only in government but also in the media.”

“We will go after journalists who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig the election,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 presidential election in which Democratic challenger Biden defeated Trump. “We will pursue you criminally or civilly. We’ll figure it out. But yes, we will notify you all.”

President Trump announced Saturday that he will nominate Hillsborough County, Florida’s top law enforcement officer, Sheriff Chad Chronister, to head the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Chronister is another Florida Republican appointed to the Trump administration. He has worked for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office since 1992 and became Hillsborough County’s top law enforcement officer in 2017. He also worked closely with Pam Bondi, Trump’s choice for attorney general.

Patel, the child of Indian immigrants and a former public defender, spent several years as a Justice Department prosecutor before coming to the attention of the Trump administration as a staffer on the House Permanent Committee on Intelligence.

The committee’s then-chairman, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, was a staunch Trump ally and tasked Patel with leading the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Patel ultimately helped write the “Nunes Memo,” a four-page report outlining the Justice Department’s mistakes in obtaining warrants to surveil former Trump campaign volunteers. The release of the memo was met with fierce opposition from Wray and the Justice Department, who warned that it would be reckless to release sensitive information.

A subsequent inspector general report identified serious problems with FBI oversight during the Russia investigation but found no evidence that the FBI acted with partisan motivation in conducting the investigation and said it had legitimate grounds for opening the investigation.

The Russia investigation raised Patel’s suspicions about the FBI, intelligence agencies and the media, which he called “the most powerful enemy America has ever seen.” Catching compliance errors in the use of the FBI’s spying program, which officials say is essential to national security, Patel accused the FBI of “weaponizing” its power to spy on innocent Americans.

Patel parlayed this work into an influential executive branch role on the National Security Council and later served as chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.

Even after leaving office, he remained a loyal deputy to President-elect Trump, accompanying him to court during his criminal trial in New York and claiming to reporters that Trump was a victim of a “constitutional circus.”

In addition to her 2023 memoir, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel has published two iconic Trump children’s books. In ‘The Conspiracy Against the King’, the thinly veiled Hillary Clinton appears as a villain chasing ‘King Donald’, and the wizard Cash, known as a brilliant discoverer, exposes the evil plot.

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.