Trump picks longtime ally Kash Patel to replace current FBI director
President-elect Donald Trump intends to install Kash Patel, a close ally and former national security aide who has berated the Justice Department and the news media, to replace Christopher Wray as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Trump wrote in a post on social media Saturday that Patel is a “brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.”
Patel came to national attention as a congressional aide investigating the feds who were probing Russian interference in the 2016 election, before he pivoted into roles in Trump’s National Security Council and Pentagon. He’s a regular on right-wing podcasts, where he has issued threats to prosecute political adversaries. Patel also pledged to shutter the FBI headquarters “on day one” and to disperse employees there across the country.
“We’re absolutely dead serious,” Patel told podcaster Steve Bannon after the November election.
Patel, 44, is a former Justice Department prosecutor turned fierce critic of that agency. He wrote a book promising to hollow out the DOJ and the FBI by cleaning house and sweeping out their senior ranks. Patel also said he wants to declassify reams of government secrets, and to wrest security clearances away from people who investigated Trump.
The FBI director serves a 10-year term in office, across multiple presidential administrations, in an effort to shield the bureau from partisan political pressure. The job requires Senate confirmation.
In response to the announcement, the FBI issued a statement: “Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. 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.”
Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after firing predecessor Jim Comey. Wray has signaled he wants to serve out the remainder of his term. But his relationship with Trump has been a tense one.
Near the end of the first Trump administration, then-President Trump attempted to put Patel in a senior role at the Central Intelligence Agency, but senior leaders at the CIA and the Justice Department blocked the move.
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