FBI Director nominee Kash Patel has been vocal in his criticism of the agency, accusing its leadership of bias and overreach, particularly regarding investigations involving President-elect Donald Trump.
He has embraced Trump’s rhetoric about a “deep state,” involving the FBI and other institutions, a term often used to allege the existence of a covert network within the government working against elected leaders and public interests.
Patel, who was a federal public defender and prosecutor before joining the Trump White House, has repeatedly promised to dismantle the “deep state” and punish Trump critics, as reported by Newsweek.
In his book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, which is part memoir, part exposé, Patel calls for a “comprehensive housecleaning” of the Justice Department.
He also calls for the eradication of “government tyranny” within the FBI by firing “the top ranks” and prosecuting “to the fullest extent of the law” anyone who “in any way abused their authority for political ends, as reported by Good Morning America.
Newsweek contacted the FBI via email on Sunday for comment.
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Patel has advocated for significant reforms within the FBI, including relocating its headquarters, saying he would shut down the J. Edgar Hoover building, which serves as the bureau’s headquarters in Washington D.C.
The former Trump adviser has also said he would change the way the agency approaches classified documents, and alter its structure to reduce what he sees as entrenched partisanship.
In a video of an interview on the Shawn Ryan Show, posted to the X, formerly Twitter, account named “End Wokeness,” Patel said that the “biggest problem” the FBI has had has come out of its intelligence operations, saying he would “break that component out of it.”
Patel also called for decentralizing the FBI and turning its D.C. headquarters into a museum, saying he would “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.”
Patel also said he would 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. Go chase down murderers and rapists and drug dealers and violent offenders.”
“What do you need 7,000 people there for?” Patel asked. “What are all these people doing here? Looking for the next government promotion, looking for their next fancy government title, looking for their parachute out of government. So while you’re bringing in the right people, you also have to shrink government,” he added.
The video has so far had over 367,000 views.
In another video interview posted to the site, Patel referred to alleged corruption by government officials, saying: “We need a 24/7 declassification office,” saying that the system has been “over abused” by “corrupt officials in government to hide the truth and enact more corrupt activities.”
When moving onto the subject of “Russiagate,” Patel said that officials told him that his comments about Russia would get people “murdered”, with Patel retorting that “no one died.”
In Government Gangsters, Patel critiques what he describes as the “deep state”, accusing them of political bias and misuse of authority.
In it, he provides his perspective on what he sees as the misuse of power by government officials, framing it as a battle to preserve democracy against institutional corruption.
Patel also criticizes the FBI and other government agencies, claiming they have become politically compromised, and argues that bureaucrats and officials in various federal agencies, intelligence organizations, and other institutions undermine democratic processes and seek to consolidate their own power.
