Kash Patel

Patel was raised in Garden City, New York, within a Hindu household. His father, Pramod Rameshchandra Patel, is of Gujarati Indian descent and relocated to Canada and later the United States after being expelled from Uganda in 1972 amid anti-Asian persecution under Idi Amin.

Patel is an avid ice hockey player and former youth hockey coach. In adult recreational leagues, he has skated with the Dons, a club team in Washington, D.C.

In October 2022, Patel met country singer Alexis Wilkins at a ReAwaken America Tour event, and they began dating in January 2023. Wilkins held the Bhagavad Gita during Patel's swearing-in ceremony as director of the FBI in February 2025.

After graduating from Garden City High School, Patel attended the University of Richmond, earning a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and history in 2002. He completed a certificate in international law at University College London and earned his Juris Doctor from the Pace University School of Law in 2005.

Patel began his career as a local public defender in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where he handled violent crime and drug trafficking cases. He subsequently transitioned to the Southern District of Florida as a federal public defender. In 2012, he joined the United States Department of Justice, working as a junior staff attorney coordinating arrest warrants before joining the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Division as a prosecutor in 2013. During his tenure at the Justice Department, he also served as a legal liaison to the Joint Special Operations Command.

In April 2017, Patel was hired as senior counsel and national security advisor for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, then chaired by Representative Devin Nunes. In that position, he played a central role in the committee's review of the federal investigation into ties between Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials.

Patel was the primary author of the February 2018 congressional document known as the Nunes memo. The document asserted that Department of Justice and FBI officials had committed critical omissions and misstatements when applying for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page, specifically emphasizing the role of the Steele dossier. While the memo drew political controversy upon its declassification, a subsequent report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz confirmed procedural errors in the warrant applications without substantiating claims of intentional political bias.

In February 2019, Patel joined the National Security Council, initially handling United Nations policy in the International Organizations and Alliances directorate before being named senior director of the counterterrorism directorate in July 2019. In February 2020, he was named principal deputy director of national intelligence under Acting Director Richard Grenell, supervising restructuring efforts within the intelligence community before returning to his counterterrorism post at the NSC in May 2020.

In November 2020, President Trump appointed Christopher C. Miller as acting secretary of defense, and Patel was named Miller's chief of staff at the Pentagon. In that capacity, he led departmental operations and coordinated Pentagon transition activities following the 2020 presidential election until the conclusion of the administration in January 2021.

Between government posts, Patel founded the consulting firm Trishul and established The Kash Foundation. In April 2022, he was appointed to the board of directors of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social. He was also an active media commentator, co-hosting the program Kash's Corner on EpochTV from 2021 to 2023 and frequently guest hosting Steve Bannon's War Room podcast.

Patel authored the 2023 political book Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, which criticized federal law enforcement practices and proposed extensive reforms to the civil service. In addition to his non-fiction work, he wrote a trilogy of allegorical children's books published by Brave Books: The Plot Against the King (2022), The Plot Against the King: 2,000 Mules (2022), and The Plot Against the King 3: The Return of the King (2024).

In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Patel as the ninth director of the FBI, succeeding Christopher A. Wray. Following confirmation hearings before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in January 2025, the United States Senate confirmed Patel in a 51-49 vote on February 20, 2025. He was sworn into office the following day, becoming the first person of South Asian descent to lead the bureau. He concurrently served as acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from February to April 2025.

Upon taking office, Patel initiated an agency overhaul aimed at decentralizing operations away from Washington, D.C., proposing the reassignment of field personnel to regional hubs and Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. His administrative decisions included disbanding the FBI's public corruption squad (CR15) and closing the Office of Internal Auditing.