Let’s meet Kash Patel
Trump’s pick for FBI chief is a curious right-wing figure
Published in
5 min readDec 2, 2024
In 2018, a Congressional aide became a right-wing star by making a case that the FBI was undermining Donald Trump. Now Kash Patel is nominated to head the agency.
Republicans are giddy at his promises to punish Trump’s enemies. But he’s such an unusual figure.
He likes to say how ‘normal’ he is.
His 2023 book Government Gangsters presents itself as a memoir about a young Congressional aide who stumbled into the nefarious world of the ‘Deep State’. He writes:
“I’m just a guy from Queens and Long Island with the same story as so many others. I didn’t have some special upbringing or education. My parents aren’t rich or famous. They’re just a couple of working-class immigrants from India. Hell, my biggest memories as a kid are going to Disney World and hockey games — pretty much as milquetoast Americana as it can get.”
He’s sometimes said to be a devout Hindu, but seems never to discuss it himself.
He went to a low-ranked school to become a lawyer. He worked as a public defender in…
