Trump picked Patel for FBI after some aides warned it could backfire

They cautioned that Patel not only lacked the right experience, but they feared his embrace of controversial theories could hurt his chances at Senate confirmation, people familiar with the discussions said.

The team had already been through the wringer with Trump’s first choice to lead the Justice Department, former congressman Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from consideration last month after Senate Republican pushback. Some of Trump’s advisers felt that there were more qualified, less inflammatory options than Patel to lead the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, the people said.

Trump ignored those aides and chose Patel anyway in a Saturday night decision that sent shock waves through the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump now hopes to install the bombastic, hard-line critic of the bureau as its leader, the latest step in his long promised plans to remake the nation’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies more fully into an arm of his agenda.

The announcement not only signaled that he would oust the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, but that he would seek to empower a polarizing figure—even within Republican circles—and dare the Senate to defy him.

Less than 24 hours after Trump announced his nomination of Patel, there were early signs that winning Senate approval could be a challenge.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) said on X that “It’s time 2 chart a new course" at the bureau, but stopped short of endorsing Patel, saying he “must prove to Congress he will reform &restore public trust in FBI."

Sen. Mike Rounds, (R., S.D.) suggested the Senate wouldn’t rubber stamp Patel’s nomination. “We still go through a process, and that process means advise and consent," he said. “The process has worked. And I expect that process to continue."

He also expressed caution about replacing Wray before the end of his 10-year-term, which is designed to insulate the FBI from political pressure as administrations change. Presidents have historically allowed the director to serve it out before picking a replacement, though Trump fired James Comey in 2017 before his term was set to expire—and chose Wray to replace him.

Questions about whether Patel would keep the FBI free of White House influence are sure to dominate his confirmation hearing.

“The President-elect wants to replace his own appointee with an unqualified loyalist," Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) said on Sunday. Durbin is set to become the ranking Democrat on the panel when Republicans take control of the Senate in early January.

Patel worked as a federal prosecutor and served in several senior national-security roles, experiences not uncommon in the background of an FBI director. But outside his résumé, the antagonistic positions he has taken about the agency set him far apart from most anyone who has served as its leader.

For one, Patel could bring an overtly partisan leadership style other Justice Department leaders have long sought to avoid. He has said he wants to shrink the FBI and shutter its Washington headquarters, prosecute agents he considers corrupt, and take legal action against journalists he called traitors, views that set him apart from earlier directors.

His varied work history also includes business ventures under the logo “K$H," selling pro-Trump merchandise and author of provocative books, including one for children that pays homage to its hero, “King Donald."

His supporters see that unusual journey to the FBI nomination as an advantage, after years in which Republicans have accused the bureau of overzealously targeting conservatives.

“He’s coming from outside the system," said Michael Spivack, who worked with Patel when he was a federal public defender in Florida more than a decade ago. “If you really want to change the system, you need bright intelligent people coming from the outside."

But some who supervised Patel during the first Trump administration warn that he is unfit for the job.

“He’s absolutely unqualified for this job. He’s untrustworthy," said Charles Kupperman, who served as Trump’s deputy national security adviser and worked closely with Patel. “It’s an absolute disgrace to American citizens to even consider an individual of this nature," he said.

His critics say his four-page resume—covering stints as a public defender, a counterterrorism prosecutor and a national-security official during Trump’s first term—masks a lack of management experience and a firm grasp of how the FBI works.

Trump’s growing disdain for the FBI following a slew of investigations and indictments into his own conduct has made his choice of Patel even more disconcerting for critics who worry he will wield the bureau as a weapon to go after his perceived enemies—including some within its ranks.

Trump saw in Patel someone who would unapologetically tackle the “deep state," Trump’s disparaging term for the federal bureaucracy he views as out to get him, people familiar with his decision said. His desire to oust Wray had intensified in recent months, and he wanted, in Wray’s place, a deeply loyal ally who would work more closely in step with the White House.

Several advisers on his transition team proposed alternatives to Patel in recent weeks, including the former head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mark Morgan, and Chris Swecker, who worked in the bureau for 24 years, including in senior roles.

However that consideration met blowback from grassroots MAGA Republicans who think the president-elect should be choosing loyalists instead of mainstream candidates. Trump was “well aware" of those sentiments, one person said, and thought Patel was a candidate to appease his base.

Trump has long eyed Patel for top national-security and intelligence roles. During his first term in 2020, he pushed the idea of installing Patel as the bureau’s deputy director.

In his memoir, former Attorney General William Barr recalled telling Trump’s chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, that such a change would happen “over my dead body."

“Someone with no background as an agent would never be able to command the respect necessary to run the day-to-day operations of the bureau," Barr wrote, adding: “The very idea of moving Patel into a role like this showed a shocking detachment from reality."

Yet several of his former superiors in the first Trump administration hailed him as dedicated to the country and misunderstood by critics.

“When he talks about ‘cleaning house’ and getting rid of the Deep State, I know for a fact that he’s defined it as those partisans who have manipulated the process, who are ruining the FBI and its great mission of the past. He wants to restore the mission," said Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence who worked with Patel.

Leading the bureau would be a rapid career ascendance for Patel, the son of Indian immigrants who grew up in Queens, New York.

After graduating from law school at Pace University, he became a public defender. At the federal office in South Florida, he met Spivack, who said Patel was the only other conservative in the office. When chatting with more liberal colleagues, Kash was “always very on keel, and he would kill them with the facts." He spent nearly nine years in local and federal courts in Miami before joining the Justice Department.

Patel touts his experience as a prosecutor during the Obama administration, handling cases against international terrorists that he said gave him a window into the FBI’s intelligence-gathering abilities. He worked there for about three years before he was hired as a staffer for the House Intelligence Committee led by Trump ally, Rep. Devin Nunes.

Patel emerged during Nunes’s inquiry as a chief antagonist of the Justice Department and FBI, writing in a 2018 memo that the agencies had abused their power and shown bias against Trump in their investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Patel was brought in to work on Trump’s National Security Council, his portfolios including work with international organizations and on counterterrorism issues. Officials who worked closely with Patel said he gradually grew to have significant access to Trump, often circumventing the usual protocol to access the then-president. Many accused him of being underqualified for the work he had been assigned and questioned his motivations in light of growing partisan tensions during the Trump years.

But Trump, they said, viewed the young national-security aide as a true loyalist whom he could trust. Patel went on to hold senior positions at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon. Among his most notable efforts during the Trump years: He traveled to Syria to discuss the fate of U.S. hostages believed held in the country, including Austin Tice, a journalist captured in 2012.

Since Trump left office in 2021, Patel has stood by his side, even as many in the party kept their distance following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. And in addition to selling Trump merchandise, he has launched a post-government career as an author, using books as a vehicle for airing grievances with Democrats and other Trump critics

The cover of his memoir, “Government Gangsters," features Patel wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a briefcase with a presidential helicopter in the background. It was adapted into a documentary by Steve Bannon before his recent imprisonment for defying the House committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol.

Patel has also published a children’s book series featuring a wizard named Kash and the character King Donald, who is determined to “Make the Kingdom Great Again." Over the past year, Patel was a fixture on the campaign trail at Trump rallies, stumping alongside the GOP nominee and independently on his behalf. A month before the election, at a rally in Prescott Valley, Ariz., Patel issued a warning:

“The government gangsters and the fake news media are coming for our constitutional republic," he said. “They have used their unconstitutional means and their two tiered system of justice and the deep state—and it’s not a Republican or Democratic thing."

Write to Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com, Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and C. Ryan Barber at ryan.barber@wsj.com