Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump has picked a former aide Kash Patel – the son of Indian immigrants – to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, media reports said on Sunday. .
A former US defence department chief of staff in the first Trump administration, Patel has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming Republican president, a BBC report said.
He shares the president-elect’s suspicion of government institutions.
“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, his social media platform, adding that Patel was “an advocate for truth, accountability, and the constitution”.
For Patel to take the job, the current FBI director Christopher Wray would need to resign or be fired – although Trump did not call on him to do so in his post.
Separately, Trump said he plans to nominate Chad Chronister, sheriff of Florida’s Hillsborough County, as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Patel and Chronister join Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi in filling out Trump’s law enforcement picks.
All three choices will have to be confirmed by a majority vote in the US Senate.
In a statement following Trump’s announcement, the FBI said: “Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats.
“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.”
Patel was hired by Trump as a national security aide in 2019 and a year later was appointed chief of staff to the head of the Pentagon.
Patel has published two pro-Trump children’s books.
One of the titles, The Plot Against the King, features a villain, Hillary Queenton, trying to depose King Donald, who is aided by a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer.
Another villain is called Keeper Komey – a thinly-veiled reference to former FBI Director James Comey – and his “spying slugs”, according to the book’s blurb
