Name: Who Is Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s Pick to Lead the FBI?
Uploaded: 2024-12-07T00:15:00Z
Duration: 4 min 13 s
Description: President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. WSJ’s Sadie Gurman breaks down Patel’s rise from public defender to one of Trump’s most loyal operatives.

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President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. WSJ’s Sadie Gurman breaks down Patel’s rise from public defender to one of Trump’s most loyal operatives. Photo Illustration: Annie Zhao

https://m.wsj.net/video/20241207/f4d38d41-013a-4b05-a170-d7394aa91c2b/2/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. WSJ’s Sadie Gurman breaks down Patel’s rise from public defender to one of Trump’s most loyal operatives.

Who Is Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s Pick to Lead the FBI?

Narrator: Donald Trump has picked Kash Patel, a hard-line critic of the FBI, to replace the Bureau's current leader, Christopher Wray, before the end of Wray's 10-year term.

When Trump announced that decision, it sort of sent a shockwave through the Justice Department and the FBI.

I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building, on day one, and reopen it the next day as a Museum of the Deep State.

Narrator: Here's what Trump's nomination means for the nation's federal law enforcement agency.

Kash Patel had a very interesting and unusual path to becoming Trump's pick to lead the FBI.

Narrator: Patel's controversial views of the Department of Justice and the FBI have caused some of Trump's advisors to question his chances of confirmation.

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.

A lot of senators expressed concerns that he just doesn't have the right experience. He lacks the kind of management of a broad organization as big as the FBI or even a US Attorney's office that many former FBI leaders and people on the Hill are concerned about.

Narrator: Patel began his career as a public defender in Florida, then joined the Justice Department as a counter-terrorism prosecutor. That was where he developed his anti-establishment views.

He grew very conspiratorial around this time. He felt like they were actually out to get him, and that there were forces at work in the government against him. That may or may not have been what pushed him ultimately to leave the Justice Department.

The two-tier system of justice is the Deep State's weapon of choice.

Narrator: After that, Patel had stints in the offices of Congressman Devin Nunes. He got on Trump's radar by criticizing the FBI's investigations into Trump and was appointed to a senior intelligence role in Trump's first administration. Since Trump left office in 2021, Patel has become one of his most loyal foot soldiers.

President Trump, in my opinion, has the best policy, the best agenda.

He's a loyal campaign surrogate, and he has started using, you know, sort of parlaying that relationship that he has with Trump into marketing his own business ventures, into selling t-shirts and other merchandise. He also, in post government career, became an author and he's been using his books as a vehicle to air his grievances with Democrats and other Trump critics. In fact, he wrote a children's book in which he is a wizard who is defending a king that is named Donald King Donald. The way that Kesh Patel talks about the FBI is really unlike any other director that I've ever heard speak about the agency. He talks about wanting to shrink its ranks, wanting to shutter its Washington headquarters, and move people out into the field.

I take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals, go be cops.

He wants to disband its intelligence operations, which are arguably some of its most important functions, and he wants to notably punish agents and employees that he believes are corrupt or have committed misconduct.

This is why they hate us. This is why we're tyrannical. This is why we're dictators 'cause we're actually going to use the constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of, but never have.

Sadie: He's echoed every sort of criticism that Trump has had about the Bureau and about the Justice Department, even though some of his transition team privately cautioned him against putting somebody as polarizing and controversial as Kash in as FBI director, he went ahead and did it anyway.

Narrator: If confirmed by the Senate, Patel will command 35,000 employees across dozens of FBI field offices throughout the US.

Certainly these people will have some concerns about how the Bureau will be run under Kash Patel and what would happen to their employment there. On a more macro level, there is some concern about Kash Patel's intentions and motivations for leading the Bureau. Kash Patel is somebody who is a political operative, and he's overtly political and very opinionated and very vehement that the FBI needs to change.

Narrator: A spokesman on Trump's transition team told the journal that Patel was quote, beyond qualified to lead the FBI.

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