The next president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, named the lawyer Kash Patel, known as his ardent supporter , for the future director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – the leading federal law enforcement agency of the USA, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.
The agency sees Patel's nomination as another “bombshell” that Trump is dropping on Washington and a test of how Senate Republicans will approach confirming his nominations.
„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 attorney, investigator and champion of “America First” (organization for the promotion of Trump's policies – ed.), who has spent his career exposing corruption, protecting justice and protecting the American people”, the future American president wrote on his social network “Truth Social” (Truth Social).
Trump added that Patel “played a key role in exposing the “Russia, Russia, Russia” (ie the accusations that Russia supported his presidential candidacy – p.ed.), by standing up for truth, responsibility and the Constitution.
It remains unclear whether Patel would even be confirmed by the Republican-dominated Senate, although Trump has mentioned the possibility of temporary appointments between Senate sessions to advance his nominations.
If appointed, Patel would replace FBI chief Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017 but quickly fell out of favor. Although his tenure is ten years long, Wray's replacement is not unexpected given Trump's long-standing criticism of the FBI and himself, including the search of Trump's Florida property for classified documents that led to the indictment.< /p>
In earlier speeches, Patel has advocated reducing the “footprint” of the FBI – unlike previous directors who pushed for more resources for the agency. Patel even suggested that the FBI headquarters in Washington be shut down and “reopened the next day as a museum of the deep state” – Trump's pejorative definition of the federal bureaucracy.
Patel has also said he intends to aggressively prosecute government officials who leak information to the media, as well as change the law to make it easier to prosecute journalists.
In an interview with Steve Bannon last December, Patel said he and others “we are going to go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media”.
„We will go after those in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election” in 2020, Kash Patel said.
He is the son of immigrants from India and a former public defender who then spent several years as a prosecutor at the Department of Justice before coming to Trump's attention as a staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Again on Saturday, Trump announced that he would nominate Sheriff Chad Chronister, the police chief of Hillsborough County, Florida, to head the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Another Trump nomination announced Saturday that is likely to spark discussion is that of real estate developer Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, for ambassador to France.
Charles Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after pleading guilty to charges of tax evasion and illegal campaign donations.
Prosecutors also alleged that Charles Kushner discovered that his sister's husband was cooperating with federal authorities in the investigation and hired a prostitute to trick him, then recorded their meeting at a motel on a camera and sent the tape to his own sister.
Kushner eventually pleaded guilty to 18 charges, including tax evasion and attempted tampering with a witness. He was sentenced to two years in prison in 2005.