Kash Patel once flew from Tajikistan to Texas for a single meeting in a judge’s chambers. Judge Lynn Hughes scolded him over his attire and sent him out of the room. His bosses were angry enough to speak with the U.S. Attorney’s Office about admonishing her. Patel left the Justice Department in 2017.
Today he is FBI director, and his path there ran through public defense, terrorism prosecutions and Donald Trump’s White House.
Garden City to the courtroom
Patel was born on February 25, 1980, in Garden City, New York, on Long Island. His father, Pramod Patel, was a Gujarati Indian-Ugandan expelled by Idi Amin in 1972. The family moved to Canada and later to the United States, where his father became a chief financial officer for an aircraft bearings distributor. Patel was raised Hindu.
He graduated from the University of Richmond in 2002 and from Pace University School of Law in 2005. That year he began as a public defender in Miami-Dade County, Florida, handling violent crime and drug trafficking cases, and later worked as a federal public defender in the Southern District of Florida. A former supervisor, Michael Caruso, told the reporter behind one profile that Patel avoided challenging motions in cases he was likely to lose.
In 2012 he joined the Department of Justice. By 2013 he was a prosecutor in the National Security Division, and in January 2014 he moved to a junior post in the Counterterrorism Division. The Economic Times reported that he handled more than 60 jury trials. Patel has called himself the lead prosecutor in the case over the 2012 Benghazi attack. Records show he was a junior staffer and not on the trial team, and former colleagues told The Atlantic the U.S. Attorney’s Office led the case.
The Nunes memo and the White House
In April 2017 Patel went to work for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Representative Devin Nunes. He was a primary author of the Nunes memo, released in February 2018, which pointed to errors in the FBI’s surveillance warrant application for Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Inspector General Michael Horowitz later confirmed there were errors in that application. Lawfare said the implication of political bias was unsubstantiated. The memo raised Patel’s standing among Trump supporters.
He joined the National Security Council in February 2019 and became senior director for counterterrorism that July. In 2020 he served as principal deputy director of national intelligence until May, then returned to the council. After Trump dismissed Mark Esper that November, Patel became chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.
One episode from 2020 drew dispute. Esper wrote in his memoir that Patel told Pentagon officials that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had secured approval to enter Nigeria’s airspace for a rescue of hostage Philip Walton, when it had not been obtained. SEAL Team Six aircraft circled for about an hour. Patel denied wrongdoing, saying he “acted appropriately, relayed all information accurately and never jeopardized the safety of the hostages.”
After 2021
When Trump left office in January 2021, Patel used the association to promote business ventures and appeared on podcasts. He joined the board of Trump Media & Technology Group in April 2022. He wrote in a book that the FBI had become “so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to the people unless drastic measures are taken.” He has called for “major, major reform” of the bureau. On Steve Bannon’s podcast he said, “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens.”
Christopher Wray announced on December 11, 2024, that he would resign at the end of Joe Biden’s term on January 20, 2025. Patel appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in January 2025 and the Senate confirmed him in February. He is the first person of South Asian descent to serve as FBI director. His time in the job has involved controversies over his conduct and alleged use of federal resources for personal travel.
Sources
- Kash Patel – Wikipedia
- Meet Kashyap 'Kash' Patel: Trump’s controversial pick for FBI director, ready to shake up Washington
