US President-elect Donald Trump has picked a former aide, Kash Patel, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency the nominee has often criticised.
A former US defence department chief of staff in the first Trump administration, Patel has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming Republican president.
Separately, Trump said Saturday that he plans to nominate Chad Chronister, sheriff of Florida’s Hillsborough County, as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Patel and Chronister join Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi in filling out Trump’s law enforcement picks.
His past proposals have included “dramatically” limiting the FBI’s authority.
In his memoir, Government Gangsters, Patel called for an eradication of what he called “government tyranny” within the FBI by firing “the top ranks”.
The son of Indian immigrants, Patel is a former defence lawyer and federal prosecutor who caught Trump’s eye after he became a senior counsel to the House of Representatives intelligence committee in 2017.
He was hired by Trump as a national security aide in 2019 and a year later was appointed chief of staff to the head of the Pentagon.
As well as his 2023 memoir, Government Gangsters, he has published two pro-Trump children’s books.
One of the titles, The Plot Against the King, features a villain, Hillary Queenton, trying to depose King Donald, who is aided by a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer.
Another villain is called Keeper Komey – a thinly veiled reference to former FBI Director James Comey – and his “spying slugs”, according to the book’s blurb.
Patel has often railed against the so-called “deep state”, which some Americans believe is an unelected bureaucratic machine that secretly runs the country for sinister purposes.
Patel has also excoriated the media, which he has called “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen”.
He is also on the board of Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the incoming president’s social media platform Truth Social.
Patel reportedly has had a consulting contract with the company that paid him at least $120,000 a year.
