President-elect Donald Trump stated on Saturday that he wants to replace Christopher Wray, the FBI director, with Kash Patel, a harsh critic of the bureau who called for closing the agency's headquarters in Washington, firing its leadership, and bringing the country's law enforcement agencies "in order," writes The New York Times.
Trump announced his decision on the social network Truth Social. Now Patel's nomination will need to be approved by the Senate.
"I am proud to announce that Kashyap "Kash" Patel will become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and fighter for 'America First,' who has dedicated his career to exposing corruption, defending justice, and the American people," Trump wrote.
Trump's planned nomination of Patel echoes his unsuccessful attempt to appoint another partisan fanatic, Matt Gaetz, to the position of attorney general in the Department of Justice. He may face obstacles in the Senate, which will need to confirm his nomination, and will surely cause shock in the FBI, the publication believes.
Patel worked as a federal prosecutor and public defender, but he has little experience in law enforcement and management activities typical for FBI directors. He held several administrative positions at the end of Trump's first term, including posts in the National Security Council and the Pentagon. Before leaving office in early 2021, Trump floated the idea of appointing Patel as deputy director of the CIA or FBI. William Barr, who was the attorney general at the time, wrote in his memoirs that Patel would become deputy director of the FBI "over my dead body."
Trump, whose anger at the FBI intensified after the agency issued a search warrant in August 2022 for his Florida club and home Mar-a-Lago in search of classified documents, suggested to Wray earlier this year to resign, stating long before the inauguration that he needed a new director. "This is the firing of the FBI director," said one of the law enforcement officials.
Current and former law enforcement officials feared that a second term for Trump would mean an assault on the independence and authority of the FBI and the Department of Justice, and for many of them, Patel's appointment as director would confirm the worst of these fears, writes NYT. By law, FBI directors are appointed for a 10-year term to shield the bureau from politics, and the term of the current FBI director, appointed in 2017, is not yet over.
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