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CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he intends to nominate Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, in an extraordinary announcement that once in office Trump would move to replace the current director, Christopher Wray, before his term expires.
“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as 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 bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI,” Trump added.
Wray has three years remaining in 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 sour on Wray before he left office in 2021. Trump’s view of the FBI only worsened after his Mar-a-Lago resort was searched in August 2022, and Trump was later 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 remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.”
Trump’s interest in Patel speaks to his urge to fill top law enforcement and intelligence positions with supporters who may be open to carrying out his demands for specific investigations as well as inoculating the president against possible future probes.
Even among Trump loyalists, Patel is widely viewed as a controversial figure and relentless self-promoter whose value to the president-elect largely derives from a shared disdain 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 Nunes’ efforts to discredit the FBI’s Russia investigation into the Trump campaign, including a controversial classified memo that alleged FBI abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants on Trump advisers.
In 2019, Patel went to work 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 – as he pushed to release more information about the Russia investigation – Patel was floated as a potential replacement.
While that never came to pass, Patel has remained a fixture in Trump’s orbit, though his proximity to the president-elect has ebbed and flowed.
The mixed views of Patel among those close to Trump has been on display during the transition process as he was passed over for the job of CIA director – a role sources say he had actively lobbied for.
Multiple sources familiar with the Trump transition process previously expressed deep concerns about the possibility of Patel being named FBI director – a role where he would have vast authority to investigate the president’s political enemies, help declassify sensitive information and carry out a purge of career civil servants.
“Kash is frightening at the bureau,” a source familiar with internal deliberations about the role of FBI director previously told CNN.
FBI directors serve 10-year terms in part to shield the bureau’s leader from political pressure. FBI directors serve decadelong terms as the result of a post-Watergate law passed in response to J. Edgar Hoover’s controversial 48-year leadership of the agency.
The breaking of this norm is not new for Trump, who fired Comey shortly after taking office in 2017. Comey, who helmed 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 serving in the position for over three years.
Trump on Saturday evening also announced that he has picked Chad Chronister, sheriff of Hillsborough County, Florida, to serve as the Drug Enforcement Agency administrator in his incoming administration.
This story has been updated with additional information.
