Lawyer and children’s book author: Trump’s future FBI chief considers the media to be the “most powerful enemy the USA has ever seen”

The Federal Police FBI is considered one of the most powerful investigative agencies in the world, not least because of countless Hollywood films and series. But in the worldview of Trump supporters, at least since the investigations against Donald Trump, the FBI has also represented a political police force – regardless of the facts.

Now Trump is announcing that he will appoint a hardliner as FBI director. Kash Patel is not supposed to make the authority more powerful, but rather weaken it. The future man at the top has declared that he wants to take action against journalists with the help of the authorities. He also stood by Trump faithfully during his criminal trial – and even wrote two children’s books about the president.

Patel is considered a loyal Trump supporter. He is supposed to transform America’s most important law enforcement agency and wants to rid the government bureaucracy of alleged “conspirators.” The appointment is the latest blow that Trump has given the Washington establishment – and a test of how far Senate Republicans will go in confirming his nominees.

“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will be the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Trump wrote on his social network Truth Social on Saturday evening (local time). “Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator and America First fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people.”

The selection fits with Trump’s view that the government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies need to be radically restructured – and with his desire to retaliate against perceived opponents, which he repeatedly expressed during the election campaign. Trump is still angry about the years-long federal investigation that marred his first term and later led to his indictment. He is now putting close allies at the helm of the FBI and Justice Department who he believes will protect rather than control him.

The FBI was investigating the former and future president, among other things, for missing secret papers and attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. It took action against those of his supporters who stormed the US Capitol almost four years ago.

Headquartered in Washington, the FBI has 56 field offices across the country that investigate cases ranging from cyberattacks and white-collar crimes to murder and allegations of sexual misconduct. The FBI is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice.

“This FBI will end America’s growing crime epidemic, dismantle criminal migrant gangs and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the border,” Trump said.

Patel “played a critical role in exposing the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia lie’ and is a champion of truth, honesty and the Constitution,” Trump wrote. By the “Russia, Russia, Russia lie,” Trump means repeated accusations against him that he is too Russia-friendly or that he is even being blackmailed by the Kremlin with intimate information. Russia is also said to have interfered in the election campaign.

It remains unclear whether Patel will be confirmed by the Republican-dominated Senate. However, Trump has also considered the possibility of bypassing the Senate.

Patel would replace current FBI chief 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 actually for a ten-year term, Wray’s removal is not unexpected. Trump has long publicly criticized him and the FBI, including after a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for classified documents and two investigations that led to his indictment. Therefore, there has long been speculation that Trump would fire Wray if he did not resign himself.

Patel’s earlier proposals for FBI reform, if implemented, would lead to a profound upheaval in an agency charged not only with investigating violations of federal law but also with protecting the country from terrorist attacks, foreign espionage, and other threats.

Patel called for a drastic downsizing of the FBI. That’s a perspective that sets him apart from previous directors who have consistently sought additional resources for the agency. He has also proposed closing the agency’s headquarters in Washington and “reopening it the next day as a museum of the ‘Deep State'” – Trump’s derogatory catch-all term for the supposedly bloated and scheming federal bureaucracy. This fits with Trump’s program to significantly reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy – under the direction of Tesla boss Elon Musk.

Another critical point of reform concerns the media: Although the Justice Department in 2021 banned the practice of secretly seizing reporters’ phone records to uncover sources, Patel has said he will aggressively crack down on government officials who leak information to reporters. He wants to change the laws to make it easier to sue journalists.

In an interview with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon last December, Patel said that he and others “will ferret out the conspirators not only in the government but also in the media.”

“We will go after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 presidential election in which Biden defeated rival Trump. “We will come after you, whether criminally or civilly. We’ll clear this all up.”

Started career as a public defender

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

The committee’s then-chairman, California Rep. Devin Nunes, was a strong Trump ally and tapped Patel to lead the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign. Patel eventually helped write the so-called “Nunes memo,” a four-page report outlining that the Justice Department made a mistake in authorizing surveillance of a former Trump campaign volunteer. The release of the memo was met with vehement opposition from Wray and the Justice Department. They warned against carelessly disclosing sensitive information.

A later inspector general report found significant problems with FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation. But he found no evidence that the FBI had acted for partisan political motives in conducting the investigation. The report concluded that there was a legitimate basis for opening the investigation.

The Russia investigation fueled Patel’s distrust of the FBI, the intelligence community and also the media, which he described as “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen.” Patel accused the FBI of “weaponizing” its surveillance powers against innocent Americans.

Children’s book about “King Donald”

Patel carried this work to influential government positions on the National Security Council and later to chief of staff to Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.

Even after leaving office, he remained a loyal follower of Trump. He accompanied the president-elect into court during his criminal trial in New York and claimed to reporters that Trump was the victim of a “constitutional circus.”

In addition to his 2023 memoir, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel has published two children’s books that idealize Trump: In “The Plot Against the King,” Hillary Clinton is barely disguised as the villain , who is targeting “King Donald”. A magician brings clarification, whose name is probably not coincidentally like Patel: Kash.