HUFFPOST
Kash Patel has called for radical changes at the FBI and was a fierce and vocal critic of the bureau’s work as it investigated ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Now the steadfast Trump ally has been tapped to lead the federal law enforcement agency he’s pushed to overhaul.
A look at Patel, Trump’s pick to replace Christopher Wray atop the FBI.
Side-by-side with Trump
Patel has for years been a loyal ally to Trump, finding common cause over their shared skepticism of government surveillance and the “deep state” — a pejorative catchall used by Trump to refer to government bureaucracy.
He was part of a small group of supporters during Trump’s recent criminal trial in New York who accompanied him to the courthouse, where he told reporters that Trump was the victim of an “unconstitutional circus.”
That close bond would depart from the modern-day precedent of FBI directors looking to keep presidents at arm’s length.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, memorably recoiled when Trump asked him during a private dinner to pledge his loyalty to him. And Wray, who had no personal connection to Trump when he was picked to replace Comey, broke with Trump on different hot-button issues and served as FBI director during investigations into Trump that ultimately led to his indictment.
A determination to upend the FBI
Patel has signaled through interviews and public statements a determination to upend the FBI and radically reshape its mission.
He’s called for dramatically reducing its footprint and limiting its authority, as well as going after government officials who disclose information to reporters.
In an interview earlier this year on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Patel vowed to sever the FBI’s intelligence-gathering activities from the rest of its mission and said he would “shut down” the bureau’s headquarters building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state.’”
“And I’d take the seven thousand employees that work in that building and send them across America to go chase down criminals,” he added.
In a separate interview with conservative strategist Steve Bannon, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media.”
”We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 presidential election in which Biden, the Democratic challenger, defeated Trump. “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
