Trump says he will nominate firebrand loyalist Kash Patel to run FBI

US President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday said he wanted to replace FBI director Christopher Wray with Kash Patel, a hardline critic of the bureau who has called for shutting down the agency’s Washington headquarters, firing its leadership and bringing the nation’s law enforcement agencies “to heel”.

Trump’s planned nomination of Patel has echoes of his failed attempt to place another partisan firebrand, Matt Gaetz, atop the Justice Department as attorney-general. It could run into hurdles in the Senate, which will be called on to confirm Patel, and it is sure to send shock waves through the FBI, which Trump and his allies have come to view as part of a “deep state” conspiracy against him.

Kash Patel has worked as a federal prosecutor and a public defender, but he has little of the law enforcement and management experience typical of FBI directors.Credit: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Patel has been closely aligned with Trump’s belief that much of the nation’s law enforcement and national security establishment needs to be purged of bias and held accountable for what they see as unjustified investigations and prosecutions of Trump and his allies.

Patel “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability and the Constitution,” Trump said in announcing his choice in a social media post.

He called Patel “a brilliant lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American people”.

Patel, a favourite of Trump’s political base, has worked as a federal prosecutor and a public defender, but he has little of the law enforcement and management experience typical of FBI directors.

He served in a series of administration positions at the tail end of Trump’s first term, including posts on the National Security Council and in the Pentagon. Before leaving office in early 2021, Trump floated the idea of making Patel deputy director of either the CIA or the FBI. William Barr, attorney-general at the time, wrote in his memoir that Patel would have become deputy FBI director only “over my dead body”.

The announcement also underscores Trump’s intense dislike of Wray, whose 10-year term does not expire until 2027. Trump appointed Wray to the job but soured on him within months, complaining to friends and allies that Wray was not running the agency the way he wanted.

Soon after Trump lost the 2020 election, he called Wray and said he was not going to fire him, even as he moved to dismiss other high-profile officials, such as his defence secretary, Mark Esper.

But Trump, whose fury with the FBI deepened after the agency executed a search warrant in August 2022 at his Florida club and home, Mar-a-Lago, in search of classified documents, suggested earlier this year that Wray resign. In declaring well before being sworn into office that he wanted a new director, Trump was pushing Wray to resign before he could be fired.

“This is firing the FBI director,” said one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorised to discuss the matter.

Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray.Credit: AP

A statement released by the bureau after Trump’s announcement did not address whether Wray would step aside.

“Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats,” the statement said. “Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with and the people we do the work for.”

“It is extremely dangerous to have a change in an FBI director just after a change in administration,” the official said, referring to the long-standing policy of keeping the cycle for appointments of a director separate from the presidential election cycle and partisan politics.

Although a number of Trump’s allies expected him to announce a replacement for Wray, many did not believe he would ultimately select Patel, whose confirmation process before the Senate could be rigorous. Trump had at one point been considering making Missouri attorney-general Andrew Bailey FBI director, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Current and former law enforcement officials have worried that a second Trump term would feature an assault on the independence and authority of the FBI and the Justice Department, and for many of them, Patel’s ascension to the director’s role would confirm the worst of those fears.

Patel laid out his vision for wreaking vengeance on the FBI and the Justice Department in a book, Government Gangsters, calling for clearing out the top ranks of the bureau, which he called “a threat to the people”. He also wrote a children’s book, The Plot Against the King, telling through fantasy the story of the investigations into Trump’s 2016 campaign’s possible ties to Russians.

Donald Trump has described Kash Patel as “a brilliant lawyer, investigator and ‘America First’ fighter...”Credit: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

He has vowed to investigate and possibly prosecute journalists once he is back in government, saying he would “follow the facts and the law”.

“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,” he said last year. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

In planning to remove Wray from atop the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, Trump would be echoing one of the most defining acts of his first term, his dismissal of James Comey as FBI director as investigations of Trump associates began to heat up.

That act led to the appointment of the special counsel Robert Mueller, who spent nearly two years examining the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia. Trump wanted to fire Mueller, but he backed off when the White House counsel threatened to quit.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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