President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, has plans to change the intelligence agency from moving HQ to “major” surveillance reform. Here are his plans.
By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON Kash Patel has been well-known for years within Donald Trump’s orbit as a loyal supporter who shares the president-elect’s skepticism of the FBI and intelligence community. But he’s receiving fresh attention, from the public and from Congress, now that Trump has picked him to lead the FBI.
As he braces for a bruising and likely protracted Senate confirmation fight, Patel can expect scrutiny not only over his professed fealty to Trump but also for his belief — revealed over the last year in interviews and his own book — that the century-old FBI should be radically overhauled.
Here’s a look at some of what he’s proposed for the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. How much of it he’d actually follow through on is a separate question.
The first FBI employees moved into the current Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters 50 years ago. The building since then has housed the supervisors and leaders who make decisions affecting offices around the country and overseas.
But if Patel has his way, the J. Edgar Hoover Building could be shut down, with its employees dispersed.
“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” Patel said in a September interview on the “Shawn Kelly Show.” “Then, I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops — go be cops.”
Such a plan would undoubtedly require legal, logistical and bureaucratic hurdles and it may reflect more of a rhetorical flourish than a practical ambition.
In a book last year titled, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth and the Battle for Our Democracy,” he proposed a more modest reform of having the headquarters moved out of Washington “to prevent institutional capture and curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship.”
As it happens, the long-term fate of the building is in flux regardless of the leadership transition. The General Services Administration last year selected Greenbelt, Maryland, as the site for a new headquarters, but current FBI Director Christopher Wray has raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest in the site selection process.
In an interview last year with conservative strategist Steve Bannon, Patel repeated falsehoods about President Joe Biden and a stolen election.
