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Who is Kash Patel, Indian-origin lawyer set to lead FBI in Trump 2.0
Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist, is poised to become FBI Director following Senate vote.
Kash Patel, a staunch supporter and loyalist of Donald Trump, finds himself in a crucial role in the upcoming Trump administration as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Indian-origin lawyer who has previously served in several key positions in the US government is all set to take over as the FBI Chief following a Senate vote.
Donald Trump has nominated Patel for the role to the US Senate, according to the White House.
Present on Monday at the inauguration of Trump as the 47th President of the United States, Patel shared several photographs from the event on his social media, captioning the post with an American flag.
At this moment, however, the US' national security agency finds itself with no leader as FBI's acting director Paul Abbate announced retirement from the bureau, said a report by Associated Press. Abbate took on the role of the FBI’s acting director after Christopher Wray’s departure. Since Patel’s appointment to the big office needs an Senate approval, it remains unclear for now who will head the FBI till then.
Who is Kash Patel
Kash Patel was born to Gujarati patents in New York on February 25, 1980, in Garden City, New York. He went on to graduate from the University of Richmond and later earned a Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law.
Patel’s career as a lawyer began as a public defender when he handled multiple cases ranging across murder, narco-trafficking, to complex financial crimes in jury trials in state and federal courts.
The 44-year old is no stranger to the high-profile offices and positions in the US government as well. In his latest stint, according to the US Department of Defence, Patel “served as the former Chief of Staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and is responsible for leading the Secretary’s mission at the Department, including his executive staff and providing counsel to the Secretary on all matters concerning the Department’s operations.”
Prior to that, Patel has held several high-stake positions, including Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council (NSC). He was responsible for executing many of President Donald Trump’s top priorities, including “eliminating ISIS and Al-Qa’ida leadership such as al-Baghdadi and Qasem al-Rimi, and the safe repatriation of numerous American hostages,” says the US Defence department.
He had also been the National Security Advisor and Senior Counsel for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and led the probe into the Russian active measures campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Staunch FBI critic
While he now stands to take over as the Director of the FBI, he was once a vigorous critic of the institute. In an interview in 2023, he suggested that the FBI should be stripped of its intelligence-gathering role. He also claimed links between the FBI and the “deep state” and said that the agency’s headquarters should be turned into a “museum of the deep state.”
Patel has expressed his disapproval of the political influence over the FBI’s leadership and had controversially suggested that the agency’s headquarters should be moved out of the capital Washington, DC.
