Why Trump appoints ‘Kash’ Patel as FBI chief?

By Shankar Raj*

Washington: Two top persons of Indian origin have occupied key positions in the US President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet and inner circle – Kashyap Pramod Vinod ‘Kash’ Patel, 44, and Vivek Ramaswamy. However, the most important and controversial issue is the appointment of ‘Kash’ Patel as the next Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director. He will replace the current director, Christopher Wray before his term expires three years from now. He was a Trump nominee but fell out of favour of the former President.

“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Trump’s interest in Patel shows his urge to fill top law enforcement and intelligence positions with supporters who may be open to carrying out his demands for specific investigations and inoculating the president against possible future probes.

It is unclear whether Patel, a firebrand, could face similar opposition to his confirmation process in the Senate.

Earlier, Patel had heavily criticized the FBI calling the agency’s headquarters in Washington to be dismantled and turned into a “museum of the deep state.”

“The FBI’s footprint has gotten so freakin’ big,” Patel said while criticizing the agency’s intelligence-gathering operation. He had also ridiculed the FBI for its 2022 search warrant of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, which led to charges being brought against the former president for retaining classified documents. The judge overseeing that case eventually dismissed the charges against Trump.

In an interview in  2023, Patel said the Justice Department under Trump would “come after” media members. “We’ve got to put in all-American patriots top to bottom. We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media.”

“Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections – we’re going to come after you,” he said.

Earlier this month, one of the president-elect’s top advisers, Elon Musk, appeared to weigh in on Patel’s candidacy for the FBI job via X, the social media platform he owns. He responded with a “100” emoji to a top Trump ally’s tweet endorsing Patel for the job.

Even among Trump loyalists, Patel is widely viewed as a controversial figure and relentless self-promoter whose value to the President-elect largely derives from a shared disdain for the so-called ‘deep state’.

Patel rose to prominence within Trump’s orbit in 2018, when he served as an aide to Republican Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee at the time. Patel played a key role in Nunes’ efforts to discredit the FBI’s Russia investigation into the Trump campaign, including a controversial classified memo that alleged FBI abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants on Trump advisers.

In his 2023 book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, Patel lambasted “crazed partisans” for hijacking “the law enforcement apparatus” against Trump.

Patel’s book heavily criticizes what he refers to as “the deep state” – an amorphous term he says includes elected leaders, journalists, Big Tech tycoons and “members of the unelected bureaucracy” – calling it “the most dangerous threat to our democracy.”

Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy will join X CEO Elon Musk in a Commission that would recommend major cuts to the federal government in his administration. Many public employees now live in the fear that their jobs could be on the line.

*Shankar Raj is a former editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.