How tough Trump ally Kash Patel could help reshape the FBI or Justice Department

Last year, as Donald Trump’s re-election bid was underway, he declared that a new book by his staunchly loyal adviser Kash Patel would serve as a “blueprint” for his next administration.

“This is the roadmap to end the reign of the Deep State,” Trump said of the book on his Truth Social Media platform.

Entitled “Government Gangsters,” it calls for a “sweeping cleanup” of the Justice Department and an eradication of “government tyranny” within the FBI by firing “the top ranks” and prosecuting “to the fullest extent of the law” anyone who “abused in any way their authority for political purposes.”

“(T)he FBI has been so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to the people unless drastic measures are taken,” Patel argued in his book. Democrats “should be very afraid,” Patel wrote, as Trump and his allies battle “the deep state” — what conspiracy theorists claim is a cadre of career government employees working together to secretly manipulate policy and undermine elected leaders .

After Trump’s historic re-election last week, media speculation has suggested that Patel, a former Defense Department official, could be considered to become Trump’s attorney general or CIA director — or that he could even replace current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump said have promised to shoot.

“President Trump called (my book) the 2024 roadmap, and now let’s get it going,” Patel said Thursday on a podcast, without indicating whether he himself might take on a senior role in the incoming administration.

A spokesman for Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

Patel’s closeness to Trump and Trump’s public embrace of Patel’s book underscore how a major shakeup could come to the Justice Department or the FBI.

Here’s what Patel has to say about what new leadership could do.

Fire and potentially indict FBI and DOJ officials

Patel, who once served as a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s national security division, has long accused FBI and Justice Department leaders of using their authority to boost Democrats and undermine Republicans — especially Trump.

There has been a “two-tier legal system”, Patel has routinely said.

He often highlights his subsequent work as a congressional investigator, when he helped lead the Republican investigation into “Russiagate” — which, as he describes it, uncovered FBI wrongdoing in its 2016 investigation into alleged ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

That work led Patel to join the Trump administration in 2019, and in the final year of Trump’s presidency, Patel was named acting deputy director of national intelligence — the second-in-command of the entire U.S. intelligence community — and then chief of staff to the acting U.S. secretary of defense , a position critics argued he was unqualified to hold.

A special counsel investigation launched by the Justice Department during Trump’s first term concluded that “senior FBI personnel” and federal prosecutors working on the Russia-related investigation had “demonstrated a severe lack of analytical rigor” in the face of politically tainted information and failed to “investigate adequately”. or question that information before launching a full-scale investigation into Trump and his associates, which included wiretapping the communications of a former Trump adviser.

In its own report on the case, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General said that while it found “fundamental flaws” and significant “errors” in the FBI investigation, it found no evidence that “political bias or improper motivation influenced” the investigation, including the decision to to intercept these communications.

Still, Patel said in his book that “all those who tampered with evidence (or) hid exculpatory information” should be charged.

He also alleged “abuse of prosecutorial discretion” in declining to charge Hillary Clinton for allegedly compromising classified information through her use of a private email server, and in declining to charge President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for that Patel describes. as influence peddling — while indicting Trump ally Steve Bannon for his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House of Representatives panel investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and also targeting as many of the Trump supporters who were at the Capitol on day.

“The specific prosecutors and division(s) within the department that selectively apply the law should be removed and brought to heel,” Patel wrote in his book.

In a campaign video released last year, Trump promised that if re-elected, he would “immediately reissue” an executive order from 2020 giving him the power “to remove rogue bureaucrats.”

“And I will exercise that power very aggressively,” he declared.

Trump also said he will “totally reform” the justice system that in 2016 and 2017 approved the FBI’s requests to wiretap his former adviser’s communications.

Remove ‘massive’ amounts of security clearances

On another podcast two months ago, Patel said everyone involved in “Russiagate” should be stripped of their security clearance.

According to Patel, there is a “massive” list of such officials, from the FBI and Justice Department to the CIA and the US military.

“They all still have permits,” including those who left the government for private sector jobs, so “everyone” should lose their permits, Patel said.

Patel said he has personally “recommended” to Trump that the new administration also strip any security clearances still held by the then-51 former intelligence officials, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan , who in October 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, signed a letter rejecting the public release of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop as part of a “Russian Information Operation.”

“We would like to emphasize that we do not know whether the emails … are genuine or not and that we have no evidence of Russian involvement,” they wrote. “(But if) we’re right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we strongly believe that Americans need to be aware of this.”

Trump and his allies have accused the 51 former intelligence officials of trying to influence the 2020 election themselves. And that’s why Patel wants Trump to strip them of their clearances.

“Because it’s warranted,” Patel said. “It’s not an act of revenge. They’ve had opportunities to retire and all 51 of them have been doubled and tripled. So retire them. I think he will.”

‘Close’ FBI Headquarters

Speaking on Thursday’s podcast about FBI headquarters in Washington, DC — where more than 7,000 agents, analysts, administrative staff and other employees work — Patel said the new Trump administration should “shut that building down.”

“Open the next day as the museum of the Deep State,” he added.

Patel said the FBI would then have to leave about 50 people from its staff somewhere in Washington to help keep the agency running and send the thousands of other employees into the field to join the 16,000 employees already there.

Meanwhile, Patel said in his book that the Justice Department should “drastically limit” the number of cases it prosecutes in Washington because Washington is “perhaps the most liberal jurisdiction in America.”

Still release classified documents

On Thursday’s podcast, Patel described Trump’s election victory as a “mandate for the truth” about the “corruption” in government.

Therefore, he said, the new Trump administration should “get out all the remaining documents that were blocked” by the Biden administration and by “Deep State” efforts in other administrations.

Patel has long called for the public release of documents still unreleased from the FBI’s investigation into Trump and alleged ties to Russia.

On January 19, 2021, Trump’s last full day in office, the outgoing president announced that he had declassified a binder containing many of these documents. However, for reasons that remain unclear, none of the documents were ever officially released.

Now, as president again, Trump “can reveal the documents that these people have been writing for decades, allowing (their) corrupt activities,” Patel said Thursday.

“He’ll come in there and maybe give them the Epstein list and maybe the P. Diddy list,” Patel added, referring to documents involving late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who are in denial. wrongdoing in the sexual abuse cases recently brought against him and maintains his innocence in the criminal charges he faces.

In the campaign video released last year, Trump promised to establish a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” that will “declassify and make public all documents on Deep State espionage, censorship and corruption.”

It’s all part of “my plan to dismantle the Deep State and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption once and for all,” he said.