Since leaving office, Patel has promised in interviews that, if Trump returns to office, he and others will use the government to go after political opponents – including politicians and members of the media who he alleges without evidence helped overturn the 2020 US presidential election results.
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel told Steve Bannon, a White House chief strategist in Trump’s first term, on the War Room podcast.
“We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice… We’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”
Trump said during his reelection campaign that he considers Patel’s book – titled Government Gangsters – to be a “blueprint” for his next administration.
In the memoir, which criticises the so-called deep state, Patel calls for “comprehensive housecleaning” of the FBI by firing “the top ranks”.
On a recent podcast, he said the incoming Trump administration intends to retain about 50 members of the FBI’s Washington staff, and the remaining workforce would be put into the field. They would, in essence, “close that building down”, he said, referring to FBI headquarters.
“Open it up the next day as the museum to the deep state,” he added.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr Grenell and other former Trump administration officials who worked with Patel have praised his nomination and characterised him as a hardworking public servant.
“I have no doubt that Kash Patel will inspire our line FBI agents who want to fight crime, destroy the cartels, capture spies, and jail mobsters, thugs, fraudsters and traffickers,” Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security adviser, said on X.
Few, however, mentioned current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump after the then-president fired the agency’s last leader – James Comey – or that he still has three years remaining on his term.
Ultimately, it remains up to the Senate who will vote on whether Patel’s nomination will be confirmed.
While most senators have remained relatively quiet about Patel and a few Republicans have praised the pick, there is some apparent scepticism.
Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, seemed to raise some doubt that he would receive the necessary votes.
“I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
“We’ll see what his (Trump’s) process is, and whether he actually makes that nomination,” Rounds commented about Patel. “We still go through a process, and that process includes advice and consent, which, for the Senate, means advice or consent sometimes.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat who will soon hand his gavel to Republicans, stressed that Trump knows Wray’s term has not yet expired and called for his colleagues to block Patel’s confirmation.
“Now, the President-elect wants to replace his own appointee with an unqualified loyalist,” Durbin said in a statement. “The Senate should reject this unprecedented effort to weaponize the FBI for the campaign of retribution that Donald Trump has promised.”
