This sounds like a final revenge against the American federal police, the famous FBI, described by Donald Trump and his close friends as an organ of illegal opposition which would plot to bring him down. This Saturday, November 30, the president-elect confirmed on his Truth Social network his intention to appoint one of his close friends, Kashyap “Kash” Patel, at the head of the institution that the latter has promised to subdue for years.
Donald Trump did not wait until Christopher Wray, the current director of the FBI, whom he himself had appointed, was no longer in service to announce the change he intends to make – which must however be validated by the Senate. Christopher Wray had in recent years become the bête noire of the billionaire and his supporters, for having investigated the role of the Republican in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, or even the hundred classified documents that he had hidden after having left the White House. He is now expected to be quickly dismissed or to resign without waiting for the end of his ten-year term, which runs until 2027.
Popular figure in the MAGA world
Kash Patel, 44, was already close to Donald Trump during his first term (2017-2021). Experiencing a meteoric rise, this son of Indian migrants had held several positions of responsibility, such as National Security Advisor or Chief of Staff at the Pentagon. According to The World“Donald Trump even considered placing him at the head of political operations at the White House in mid-2019, before backing down.” Before leaving the Oval Office in 2021, he also mentioned the idea of making him director of the CIA or the FBI. William Barr, attorney general – although a Republican – at the time, wrote in his memoirs that he would have to be “passed over” before Kash Patel took one of these positions.
A highly appreciated figure within the “MAGA world” (“Make America Great Again”), Kash Patel has remained fiercely loyal to the Republican billionaire. “Kash is a brilliant jurist, investigator and fighter for America First, who has spent his career denouncing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people,” Donald Trump congratulates him today. During this new term, he will be tasked with “ending America’s growing crime epidemic, dismantling criminal gangs, and ending the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the border.” explained the man who hammered out violent rhetoric towards migrants throughout his presidential campaign. Although he worked “as a federal prosecutor and public defender”, Kash Patel “does not have as extensive experience as that of many FBI directors in law enforcement”, underlines the daily British economy The Financial Times.
Slayer of the “deep state”
The height of this appointment: Kash Patel has been promising for years to dismantle the FBI, which he considers to be the mastermind of a “deep state”. A complete conspiracy theorist, he wrote a book on this theory, widespread among the president-elect’s supporters, according to which there exists a permanent government of left-wing bureaucrats who work in the shadows against Donald Trump. In Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our DemocracyKash Patel believes that the FBI has become a political tool of the Democrats, “so deeply compromised that it will remain a threat to the population unless drastic measures are taken.” He pleads for its leaders to be fired as part of a purge campaign aimed at “subjugating” federal law enforcement.
Sentences so true in the eyes of the president-elect that the work was described by Donald Trump, during his campaign, as a “master plan to take back the White House”, recalls the British daily The Guardian. Among other reforms, Kash Patel promises to close the FBI’s central building “from day one”, transform it into a “museum of the deep state” and move the headquarters away from Washington to avoid the management “from ‘engage in political games’.
The witch hunt is on
In 2018, after having been an investigator in the United States Congress during “Russiagate”, the lawyer took the spotlight in the “MAGA world” by writing a note that became famous against the great enemy of Donald Trump, the special prosecutor Robert Mueller. Kash Patel “played a central role in the discovery of Russia, of the Russian hoax, by standing as a defender of truth, responsibility and the Constitution”, judges Donald Trump today.
His management of the FBI presents itself as a witch hunt, potentially boosted by public denunciation on social networks, a specialty of the Trump camp. Already at the end of 2023, he swore on Steve Bannon’s podcast terrible revenge in the event of Donald Trump’s re-election. “We are going to go out and find the conspirators, not only in the government but in the media,” he threatened, targeting those who helped Joe Biden “rig the elections”.
The planned appointment of Kash Patel echoes, according to the New York Timesto “his failed attempt to place Matt Gaetz, another fanatical partisan, at the helm of the Justice Department.” But “this nomination could encounter obstacles in the Senate”, judges the American media, “which will be called upon to confirm it”.