Trump picks fierce loyalist as FBI director

Kash Patel, who has promised to upend the US law enforcement agency, will force out the bureau’s current leader Christopher Wray before the end of his 10-year term.

US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Kash Patel as FBI director. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump has chosen Kash Patel to be Federal Bureau of Investigation director, moving to force out the bureau’s current leader, Christopher Wray, before the end of his 10-year-term in favour of a fierce loyalist who has promised to upend the nation’s premier law-enforcement agency.

His selection marks the start of what the president-elect hopes will be a major shake-up of the agency with which he has constantly sparred. Kash has said he would fire its senior leaders and prosecute agents he thinks abused their authority, as part of a far-ranging plan designed to shrink its size and power.

In a post on Truth Social late Saturday, Trump said Patel, 44 years old, has “spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.” Trump said Patel will “bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI.” The selection likely spells the end for Wray, whom Trump appointed during his first term in 2017 after firing Wray’s predecessor, James Comey. And it signals that other major changes lie ahead for the bureau as the president-elect threatened to seek retribution against political rivals.

“The agents and lawyers who think they can hide in the shadows while abusing their positions will be put on immediate notice,” Patel wrote in his book “Government Gangsters.” Trump called it a “brilliant road map” for his second term in the White House.

The position, which requires Senate confirmation, would be a huge step in Patel’s rapid career ascension that included stints as a public defender, a federal prosecutor, a top House staffer and aide in Trump’s first White House and Pentagon.

By tapping Patel, Trump would be pushing out Wray, the bureau’s restrained and circumspect director who has tried to steer the agency through years of political storms. In his place, he would put a swaggering campaign surrogate who has become one of the president-elect’s most trusted lieutenants. Trump would be doing so about three years before the end of Wray’s 10-year-term. He seeks an ally willing to wield the bureau as a weapon against perceived enemies – including some within its ranks.

Republicans for years have accused the FBI of overzealously targeting conservatives, a charge Wray, a Republican who served as a top Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, called “somewhat insane to me considering my own personal background.”

The Wall Street Journal