Trump announces he intends to replace the current FBI director with loyalist Kash Patel

CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he intends to nominate Kash Patel as FBI director, announcing in an extraordinary announcement that after his term ends, Trump will replace current director Christopher Wray before his term ends.

“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will be 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 on Saturday evening.

“Kash will work under our great Attorney General Pam Bondi to restore loyalty, bravery and integrity to the FBI,” Trump added.

Wray has three years left of his 10-year term and would have to resign or be fired to create a vacancy. Trump nominated Wray in 2017 after firing James Comey, but he began to resent Wray before he left office in 2021. Trump’s view of the FBI only worsened after his Mar-a-Lago resort was raided in August 2022 and Trump was later indicted for allegedly storing secret documents.

Trump’s interest in Patel reflects his push to fill top law enforcement and intelligence positions with supporters who may be willing to meet his demands for specific investigations and inoculate the president against possible future investigations.

Even among Trump loyalists, Patel is widely seen as a controversial figure and tireless self-promoter whose value to the president-elect rests largely on shared contempt for the so-called deep state.

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

In 2019, Patel worked for Trump on the National Security Council before becoming chief of staff to the acting defense secretary at the end of Trump’s first term.

When Trump considered firing then-CIA Director Gina Haspel after the 2020 election — while pushing to release more information about the Russia investigation — Patel was suggested as a potential replacement.

Even if that never happened, Patel remained a fixture in Trump’s circle, even as his closeness to the president-elect waxed and waned.

The mixed views of Patel among those close to Trump became apparent during the transition process, when he was passed over for the post of CIA director – a role for which he had actively lobbied, according to sources.

Several sources familiar with Trump’s transition process previously expressed deep concerns about the possibility that Patel could be named FBI director – a role in which he would have broad powers to investigate the president’s political enemies, while declassifying sensitive ones Information to help and conduct a purge of career civil servants.

“Kash is scary in the FBI,” a source familiar with internal deliberations over the FBI director’s role previously told CNN.

FBI directors serve 10-year terms, in part to protect the FBI chief from political pressure. FBI directors serve decades-long terms as a result of a post-Watergate law passed in response to J. Edgar Hoover’s controversial 48-year leadership of the agency.

Violating this norm is nothing new for Trump, who fired Comey shortly after taking office in 2017. Comey, who led the FBI during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election as well as the Hillary Clinton email controversy, was fired by Trump in May 2017 after holding the post for over three years.

Trump also announced Saturday evening that he has selected Hillsborough County, Florida, Sheriff Chad Chronister to serve as Drug Enforcement Agency administrator in his new administration.

This story has been updated with additional information.