Kash Patel
Kash Patel is the combative former federal prosecutor and national-security aide who became one of Donald Trump's most trusted loyalists, and a lightning rod in Washington's permanent bureaucracy wars.
Who Is Kash Patel?
Kashyap “Kash” Patel was born on February 25, 1980, in Garden City, New York, to parents who immigrated from Uganda and India. He earned a law degree from Pace University School of Law and built a career as a public defender before pivoting to national-security law with the Justice Department and the National Counterterrorism Center.
He rose to national prominence as chief investigator for the House Intelligence Committee under Rep. Devin Nunes, where he authored the controversial “Nunes memo” in 2018 alleging FBI surveillance abuses during the Russia investigation. That work made him a hero to Trump allies and a villain to the intelligence community’s old guard, a divide that has never closed.
Patel served in several senior roles during Trump’s first term, including as chief of staff at the Department of Defense. He has since been a Fox News contributor, author, and a central figure in Trump’s orbit. In 2025, he was nominated and confirmed as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one of the most consequential and contested appointments of Trump’s second term.
His public profile is simultaneously large and opaque. He courts media attention on his own terms but keeps significant personal details, finances, relationships, home address, firmly out of the spotlight, which is precisely why so many of the searches about him return thin or unverified results.