Kash Patel spent years preparing for this moment. Whether out of sincere devotion or just cynically acting in his own self-interest, Patel has repeatedly demonstrated his subservience to Donald Trump, from publishing a kid's book claiming the president-elect was a victim of a "deep state" plot to lying to congressional investigators about the Jan. 6 insurrection.
A former aide to Devin Nunes, a California Republican who retired from Congress and now leads Trump's social media company, Truth Social, Patel is indeed best known for "being willing to do sort of whatever Donald Trump would like him to do," as NBC News reporter Ryan Reilly explained in an interview with PBS. In Trump's first term, Patel's devotion saw him rise from an aide to the National Security Council to chief of staff for Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller — this, according to the Wall Street Journal, after he urged Trump to fire his previous Pentagon chief, Mark Esper, for refusing to deploy troops against Black Lives Matter protesters.
