Over the weekend, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Kashyap “Kash” Patel would be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is expected that Trump will fire current FBI Director Christopher Wray either on, or shortly after, his January 20 inauguration.

Like virtually all of Trump’s nominations, Patel earned Trump’s trust by demonstrating unswerving loyalty before, during and after the January 6, 2021 attempted coup. Speaking on fascist Steve Bannon’s War Room show in December 2023, Patel promised if Trump was re-elected, “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,” adding, “We’re going to come after you whether it’s criminally or civilly.”

Bannon warned, “This is not just rhetoric. We’re absolutely dead serious.”

Posting on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump hailed Patel as an “‘America First’ fighter” who played a “pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.” Acknowledging the leading role the FBI will play in his planned mass deportation operation, Trump wrote, “This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border.”

Current FBI Director Wray was selected by Trump to head the agency for a 10-year term beginning in 2017. Wray’s failing is that, unlike Patel, he did not publicly support Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.

Instead, Wray, a Republican, supported Trump’s coup in less overt ways, including refusing to issue security warnings prior to the attack on Congress. After the attack, Wray testified to Congress that the FBI was unaware that fascist paramilitaries, many of whom had been informants for the FBI for years, were preparing to attack Congress in order to block certification of the Electoral College vote.

Touting the 44-year-old Patel’s over decade-long service in the federal government, Trump noted that during his first term, Patel was “Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.”

Prior to working in the Trump administration, Patel provided legal justification for the US to kill so-called “terrorists” during the Barack Obama administration. He wrote with pride on his role in Obama’s Department of Justice in his 2023 book Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy:“I was embedded with America’s top special operations teams, through the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), to help manage special military operations and maximize impact.”

He continued:

...I was there to help manage the legal side of special operations. For example, if we found a terrorist, I was one of the stakeholders looking at the evidence, helping determine recommendations for what to do next, whether it was a drone strike, a Special Forces raid, or even attempting to capture the terrorist to bring him back to America for prosecution.

Patel played a central role in the lead-up to the January 6 attack on Congress. He was part of a loyalist cell installed in the Pentagon by Trump in his November 9, 2020 purge of the agency following his electoral defeat. Patel served as chief of staff under acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.

Then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was fired for not backing Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the US military against anti-police-violence protesters in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd.

In the days leading up to January 6, Trump’s acting Secretary of Defense Miller issued a series of extraordinary memos which forbade the D.C. National Guard from coming to the Capitol without his authorization and prevented them from utilizing any equipment, including riot shields and helmets.

During the attack on the Capitol, while the Pentagon deployed security teams to protect the homes of generals, Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund and D.C. National Guard General William Walker were denied authorization to deploy National Guard soldiers to the Capitol as it was under siege for 199 minutes.

Patel has repeatedly claimed, including in a closed deposition to the January 6 House Select Committee, that “DOD officials did not delay or obstruct the DoD’s response to the United States Capitol Police request for assistance on January 6th, 2021.” Patel said during his deposition to the committee that this “fact” was backed up by the Pentagon’s “Inspector General” report, which whitewashed the role of senior Pentagon leaders before and during the attack on Congress.

After the IG report was issued, Army Colonel Earl Matthews, General William Walker’s former executive officer, accused two senior Army Generals, Walter Piatt and Charles Flynn, of lying to the Inspector General and committing perjury before Congress.

Following the failed coup, Patel spread the fascist conspiracy theory that the coup was a “set up” organized by the “Deep State,” including the FBI and the Democrats to entrap gullible Trump supporters.

Patel described the “Deep State” in Government Gangsters as basically anyone opposed to Trump and the Republican Party. Patel also described the “Deep State” as “elected leaders” along with “yellow journalists in the media who serve as peddlers of propaganda and disinformation at the behest of the ruling elites.” Still others are “Big Tech tycoons” and “actors affiliated with non-governmental organizations, who carry water for the Democrat Party and the radical left.”

Invoking antisemitic and Qanon conspiracy theories, Patel wrote in the same opening chapter, “The Deep State is a cabal of unelected tyrants who think they should determine who the American people can and cannot elect as president, who think they get to decide what the president can and cannot do, and who believe they have the right to choose what the American people can and cannot know.”

As an example of “endemic corruption in the DOJ” and the “two-tier system of justice in modern-day America,” Patel cited the charging and conviction of former Trump advisor Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to the January 6th Committee, and the fact that January 6th protesters were prosecuted.

Trump’s announcement of Patel has been hailed by Republican fascists. In a video posted to his social media account, former Florida Representative and Trump’s first pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, praised Trump and his “terrific pick with Kash Patel at FBI.”

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted her support for Patel over Wray, whom she accused of tracking down “MAGA grandmas that went in the Capital (sic) on Jan 6th… Kash is going to bring a sledgehammer to the FBI.”

Another top Trump co-conspirator and friend to the Proud Boys militia group, retired General Mike Flynn, posted on X, “Kash is America’s choice as Director of the FBI. Accountability is coming.”

While Republicans are champing at the bit for Patel to go after their political enemies, Democrats are oozing complacency.

Delaware Senator Chris Coons wrote on X that Patel “will be another test of the Senate’s power of advice and consent.” He continued: “Patel needs to prove to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he has the right qualifications and, despite his past statements, will put our nation’s public safety over a political agenda focused on retribution.”