The 7,000 employees who work at headquarters would be sent out across America to hunt down criminals. Out and be police officers, said Patel about his wish list for the FBI in the podcast Shawn Ryan Show last fall – where he also presented his idea of transforming the FBI's headquarters in Washington DC into a museum.
That the future US President Donald Trump now actually wants to see the New York-born lawyer and former prosecutor Patel as the next FBI chief has hit like a bomb in the capital.
Loyal
Patel is recognized as being skilled at marketing himself, but also one of Trump's most loyal followers. He shares the Republican's distrust of the intelligence sphere and believes that people who "undermine the president's agenda" have no business being there. He has eagerly promoted Trump's false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
We will hunt down everyone in the media who lied to Americans, those who helped Joe Biden rig the election, said Patel in an interview with the controversial, far-right former Trump advisor Steve Bannon last year.
Patel has previously been an advisor to the Republican Representative Devin Nunes, when he was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Then, he formulated strong criticism of the so-called Russia investigation, which examined alleged links between Donald Trump's campaign and Moscow during the 2016 election campaign.
In 2019, Patel took the step over to Trump's White House, where he worked for the national security advisor, before moving on to a role as chief of staff at the Department of Defense.
Books and single
Besides his political career, the colorful Patel has attracted attention with his series of children's books "The Plot Against the King" (approximately "The Conspiracy Against the King"). It's about the extraordinary wizard Kash who saves the good King Donald from being overthrown by the villain "Hillary Queenton".
Patel has also co-produced a single with the "prison choir J6" that has been frequently played at Trump's campaign rallies. On it, Trump supporters who were sentenced to prison for the deadly storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, sing the US national anthem.
Kash Patel has also written a book for adults: "Government Gangsters". In it, he describes several measures he wants to take. On the list are, among other things, "firing the top FBI chiefs" and "prosecuting (officials who are) leakers and journalists", according to The New York Times.
It is unclear whether Patel's appointment will get the green light from the Senate.
The US federal police FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) has around 38,000 employees and has offices in all major cities in the country, as well as 60 offices at the country's embassies abroad.
The FBI is to protect the US from terrorist attacks, espionage, cybercrime, and corruption, as well as combat criminal organizations, economic crime, and serious violent crime.
The FBI was founded in 1908. The budget for 2025 is estimated to be over 11 billion dollars.
The FBI chief normally sits for ten years. Currently, the agency is led by Christopher Wray, whom Donald Trump appointed in 2017, during his previous term. But Trump has said he is dissatisfied with Wray and the "invasion of Mar-a-Lago", referring to the FBI's search of Trump's residence in Florida in 2022 for classified documents. Therefore, he wants to see Kash Patel as the new FBI chief. Wray announced the other day that he will resign in January.
Source: FBI
