Newly elected US President Donald Trump has announced that he will appoint Kash Patel as the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), signaling that he intends to remove the current director Christopher Wray.
Patel, a lawyer who served as national security adviser and defense secretary during Trump's first term, has previously called for the FBI to be stripped of its intelligence-gathering role and purged of employees who refuse to support Trump's agenda, Reuters reports.
"The biggest problem the FBI had was that it got out of its intelligence framework. I would close the FBI headquarters building on the first day and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state," Patel said in an interview in September.
"And I would send 7.000 employees from that building all over America to chase criminals. Be cops, you be cops," he added.
The AP considers Trump's announcement stunning, stating that it will cause new turbulence in the intelligence service, which is tasked with protecting national security and investigating crimes at the federal level.
Patel, a staunch Trump ally with plans, is the complete opposite of the current CEO, whose mantra is to work calmly and diligently.
By choosing Patel over more conventional candidates, Trump is once again testing his ability to bend the Senate to his will by confirming some of his more provocative nominees.
The current director Ray was also appointed by Trump in 2017, but his mandate should expire in 2027, given that it lasts 10 years.đ
That length of tenure is intended to ensure that the directors of the nation's most prominent law enforcement agency can operate without political influence or pressure. Presidents generally, but not always, retained the director who was in place at the time they took office.
The announcement means that Wray can either resign or wait to be fired when Trump takes office in January.
In any case, the choice of a successor is a clear indication that Rey's days are numbered. If he leaves before Patel is officially selected, the acting director position would likely be filled in the interim by the current FBI deputy director.
Republicans may have won control of the Senate, but Patel's election is not certain, primarily because of his controversial announcements.
There is no doubt that lawmakers support Trump's desire for a radical overhaul of the FBI, especially after investigations that led to two separate indictments of the president-elect, and who share his view that the agency is anti-conservative.
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