Trump announces plans to replace current FBI director with loyalist Kash Patel

CNN-

President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he intends to nominate Kash Patel as director of the FBI, in an extraordinary announcement that, once in office, Trump would replace the current director, Christopher Wray, before the expiration of his mandate.

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 fighter for America First who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice and protecting the American people, Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday evening.

Wray has three years remaining on his 10-year term and is expected to resign or be fired to create a vacancy. Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after firing James Comey, but he began to sour against Wray before leaving office in 2021. Trump's opinion of the FBI only worsened after his office was searched Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022, and Trump was subsequently indicted. for allegedly retaining classified documents.

Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats, the agency said in a statement to CNN. Director Wray's focus is always on the men and women of the FBI, the people we work with and the people we work for.

Trump's interest in Patel speaks to his desire to fill top law enforcement and intelligence positions with supporters who might be willing to carry out his demands for specific investigations as well as vaccinate the president against possible future investigations.

It also sets up another potentially explosive confirmation battle in the Senate, where members are already preparing for how they will confront a host of unorthodox choices from Trump. One of those picks, Matt Gaetz, another Trump loyalist and Justice Department critic, dropped out of the fight to become attorney general as it became clear the former Florida congressman would not have the GOP support needed for confirmation.

It's unclear whether Patel, a firebrand, could face a similar battle throughout the confirmation process.

Patel has been a vocal critic of the FBI and, in a podcast interview in September, called for the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., to be dismantled and turned into a museum of the deep state.

The FBI's footprint has gotten so big, Patel told The Shawn Ryan Show, criticizing the agency's intelligence-gathering operation.

During the interview, Patel also ridiculed the FBI for its 2022 search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, which led to charges against the former president for possessing classified documents . The judge in the case ultimately dismissed the charges against Trump.

In a 2023 interview with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, Patel said the Justice Department under Trump would go after members of the media.

We need to integrate all American patriots from the top to the bottom, Patel said of the DOJ, adding that the department under Trump would go looking for the conspirators, not only in the government but also in the media.

Yes, we were going to go after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election, we were going to go 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 post via X, the social media platform he owns. He responded with 100 emoji to a tweet from a top Trump ally endorsing Patel for the job.

Even among Trump loyalists, Patel is widely seen as a controversial figure and relentless self-promoter whose value in the president-elect's eyes stems largely from a shared contempt for the so-called deep state.

Patel rose to prominence within Trump's orbit in 2018, when he served as an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee at the time. Patel played a key role in Nune's efforts to discredit the FBI's Russia investigation into the Trump campaign, including a controversial classified memo alleging FBI abuse 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 sharply criticizes what he calls the deep state, an amorphous term that he says includes elected leaders, journalists, Big Tech moguls and members of the unelected bureaucracy, calling it the most dangerous threat to our democracy.

In his book, Patel also calls for a complete cleanup of the Justice Department, arguing that it has protected high-ranking members of the Democratic Party, failed to prosecute people who leaked information under the former Trump administration and has unfairly targeted Republicans and their allies.

Trump hailed the book as a plan to take back the White House and eliminate these gangsters from across government, according to promotional endorsements for the book.

In 2019, Patel went to work for Trump at the National Security Council before becoming chief of staff to the acting Secretary of Defense at the end of Trump's first term.

When Trump considered firing then-CIA Director Gina Haspel after the 2020 election, as he pushed to release more information about the Russia investigation, Patel was floated as a potential replacement.

Although it never happened, Patel remained a fixture in Trump's orbit, even as his closeness to the president-elect fluctuated.

Mixed views of Patel among those close to Trump were evident during the transition process, as he was passed over for the CIA director post, a role that sources said he had actively lobbied for.

Several sources close to Trump's transition process have already expressed deep concerns about the possibility of Patel being named director of the FBI, a role in which he would have broad powers to investigate the president's political enemies, help declassify sensitive information and carry out a purge of career civil servants.

Kash is scary in the office, 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 bureau chief from political pressure. FBI directors serve decade-long terms following a post-Watergate law passed in response to J. Edgar Hoovers' controversial 48 years of leadership of the agency.

Violating this standard 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 over the Hillary Clinton email controversy, was fired by Trump in May 2017 after serving in the role for more than three years.

Trump also announced Saturday evening that he had chosen Chad Chronister, sheriff of Hillsborough County, Florida, to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration in his new administration.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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