Age, Biography, and Wiki
Kash Patel is 45 years old, born on February 25, 1980. He is an American lawyer and author, known for his roles in the U.S. Department of Justice and as a national security advisor during President Donald Trump's administration. Patel's career has been marked by significant contributions, including serving as the Chief of Staff to the Acting Secretary of Defense and as a senior aide to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
| Occupation | Republicans |
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| Date of Birth | 25 February 1980 |
| Age | 45 Years |
| Birth Place | Garden City, New York, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Pisces |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited public information available about Kash Patel's height, weight, and measurements.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Details about Kash Patel's personal relationships or dating life are not widely reported.
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Net Worth and Salary
Estimates of Kash Patel's net worth vary significantly. Some sources suggest it is around $5 million to $6 million, largely due to his consulting business, book royalties, and speaking engagements. However, other reports place his net worth at $30 million, including significant real estate holdings and investments in stocks like Tesla.
After Trump left office in January 2021, Patel leveraged his association with Trump to promote several business ventures and made recurring appearances on several podcasts. In April 2022, he was named to the board of Trump Media & Technology Group. Also that year, he published a children's book about the Steele dossier and, with John Solomon, was appointed to represent Trump before the National Archives and Records Administration; the FBI questioned Patel about his involvement in Trump's records. He founded The Kash Foundation, a charity to help participants in the January 6 United States Capitol attack pay legal costs. Patel has promoted several conspiracy theories about the deep state, false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, QAnon, COVID-19 vaccines, and the January 6 Capitol attack.
After Trump left office in 2021, Patel managed Trishul, a consulting company. He founded The Kash Foundation, a nonprofit that helps participants in the January 6 United States Capitol attack pay legal costs and sells merchandise branded as K$H. According to a Trump Media & Technology Group filing, Patel worked for Trump as a paid national security advisor. Patel was listed as the director of Trump Media & Technology Group in April 2022. As director, he described promoting QAnon-adjacent accounts on Truth Social, Trump Media's social media service, as an intentional business decision to "capture audiences". In June 2022, Patel was paid $130,000 to investigate claims that the company's co-founders, Andy Dean and Wes Moss, had "fostered an unpredictable and toxic corporate culture". His report was later included in a legal dispute over Dean's and Moss's shares in the company. Patel was also named to Russell Vought's Center for Renewing America. For nine months in 2024, Patel was a consultant for Elite Depot, a company based in the Cayman Islands that operates Shein, an e-commerce platform.
Patel has conformed to Trump's view that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has become politicized. He has argued that the bureau should be distanced from Washington, D.C., citing James Comey's handling of the FBI investigation into the Hillary Clinton email controversy. In February 2022, he told Fox News that lawyers for Hillary Clinton had worked to "infiltrate" Trump Tower and White House servers; Patel's claim was used in a Fox News headline that was falsely attributed to a filing in the Durham special counsel investigation. In December 2023, Patel told Steve Bannon on War Room that he would "come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections"—echoing false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. His memoir, Government Gangsters (2023), calls for weakening civil service job protections; Trump praised the book as a "roadmap to end the Deep State's reign". In September 2024, Patel vowed to close the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the headquarters of the FBI, "reopen it the next day as a museum of the 'deep state'," and "take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals." He criticized Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter on his podcast, Kash's Corner, calling him a monopolist who had improper access to data and accrued his wealth through government contracts.
Business Ventures:
- Trishul LLC: Patel's consulting business focuses on national security, defense, and intelligence, earning over $2.1 million in 2024.
- Book Author: Patel is the author of "Government Gangsters" and a children's book series, generating income from book sales.
- Stock Investments: Holds significant stock in Tesla and other companies.
Patel's professional career began in the Miami-Dade area. He worked as a public defender in Miami-Dade County, Florida, representing violent criminals and drug traffickers, and later as a federal public defender for the Southern District of Florida. In 2012, he began working as a junior staff member at the Department of Justice routing arrest warrants. Patel served as a board member of the South Asian Bar Association of North America.
Patel temporarily served as a representative for the Criminal Division on the case against the perpetrators of the 2012 Benghazi attack, but he was allegedly removed over disagreements he had with the office leading the case, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Later, he incorrectly said he had been the case's lead prosecutor. In his memoir, he wrote that he had been asked to join the trial team against Ahmed Abu Khattala, a militia leader in the Libyan civil war. According to The New York Times, he was not offered that position.
By 2013, Patel had been assigned to the National Security Division as a prosecutor. He concurrently served as a legal liaison for the Joint Special Operations Command. In January 2014, Patel took a junior position in the Counterterrorism Division. That month, he participated in a charity auction for Switchboard of Miami. At a trial for Omar Faraj Saeed al-Hardan, a Palestinian accused of providing material support to the Islamic State, Judge Lynn Hughes repeatedly berated Patel for his unprofessional attire and had him removed from the court chambers. Patel had flown from Tajikistan to the courtroom in Texas, although he was not required to be present. He left the Department of Justice in 2017, later saying that the impetus for his departure had been the department's response to the 2016 presidential election.
In February 2019, Patel joined the National Security Council, purportedly on Sean Hannity's recommendation. According to colleagues who spoke to The New York Times, Patel "took few notes in meetings" and was inexperienced for the position. He was considered a "must-hire, directed by the president" for the council. Trump's national security advisor John Bolton and his deputy Charles Kupperman named Patel to the International Organizations and Alliances, a directorate that advances the positions of the United States at the United Nations.
In March 2023, a report compiled by Democrats on the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government detailed the testimony of two former FBI special agents, who said they had received financial support from Patel for promoting misinformation about the January 6 Capitol attack, finding one agent a position with the Center for Renewing America and promoting his book. Patel covered legal fees and paid witnesses who testified before the subcommittee, according to The New York Times. He co-produced "Justice for All", a charity record by Trump and a choir of men incarcerated in connection with the attack on the Capitol that was released that month. Patel was a political consultant for Save America and Friends of Matt Gaetz.
Patel appeared before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on January 30. He positioned himself as insulated from Trump, disagreeing with Trump's decision to pardon January 6 Capitol attack defendants. Senator Peter Welch repeatedly asked Patel whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election; Patel said that the election was "certified" but did not explicitly say that Biden won. The Judiciary Committee voted to advance his nomination 12–10 along party lines on February 13. In February, Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, sent the Department of Justice's inspector general a letter accusing Patel of directing dismissals at the bureau that was based on "highly credible information from multiple sources". The allegations, if true, would implicate Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, as having conducted firings "solely at the behest of a private citizen" and would amount to potential perjury. Patel was also criticized for his shares in Shein's parent company, a stock award he received from Trump Media & Technology Group, and his work for Qatar through Trishul.
Social Network
Kash Patel has been active on social media platforms, where he has promoted his brand and engaged in political discussions. However, specific details about his social media presence are not extensively documented.
In November 2020, Trump dismissed Esper, naming Christopher C. Miller as acting defense secretary. Patel was appointed Miller's chief of staff; he previously worked for Miller at the National Security Council and was well-regarded by him, according to The Washington Post. A senior national security official who spoke to Vanity Fair's Adam Ciralsky described Miller as a "frontman", while Patel and Ezra Cohen, the under secretary of defense for intelligence, were "calling all the shots". Patel oversaw the Department of Defense's transition efforts during the presidential transition of Joe Biden; according to The New York Times, transition officials expressed distrust of Patel, viewing him as a Trump loyalist. He faced allegations that he was intentionally blocking the transition. The Department of Defense denied those reports, saying that he had delegated his responsibility to another transition official. Patel supported an internal proposal to separate the National Security Agency from United States Cyber Command. Documents provided to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack and accounts of officials allege that Patel discussed security at the Capitol before and during the January 6 Capitol attack, and that he repeatedly contacted Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, on the day of the attack. He was in Miller's office during the attack.
In April, Trump devised a plan to oust FBI director Christopher A. Wray and to appoint William Evanina to lead the bureau, while Patel would become deputy director. Attorney General William Barr halted the plan, threatening to resign. In January 2021, Axios reported that Trump sought to appoint Patel as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency in December 2020. In response, CIA director Gina Haspel threatened to resign. At the annual Army–Navy Game that month, Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confronted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, repeatedly and loudly asking whether Patel was going to replace Wray or Haspel. In the final days of Trump's presidency, Mike Lindell, the founder and chief executive of My Pillow, went to the White House; Jabin Botsford, a photographer for The Washington Post, captured a document Lindell was holding that read, "Move Kash Patel to CIA Acting". In April 2022, Patel told an audience that he had advised Trump to fire senior Department of Justice officials.
In June 2022, Trump requested that the National Archives and Records Administration grant Patel and journalist John Solomon access to administration records; their designations were revoked in October 2023. After the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, Patel claimed that Trump had declassified the seized documents; his argument was the focus of investigators. As part of the FBI investigation into Trump's handling of government documents, federal prosecutors sought to have Patel testify before a grand jury. He appeared twice before a grand jury in October 2022, repeatedly pleading the Fifth Amendment in his first appearance. Prosecutors offered him immunity in November, securing his testimony. According to The Washington Post, prosecutors asked about his claim that Trump had declassified the documents, as well as Trump's motivation for taking the documents. Patel was represented by Stanley Woodward, who has frequently worked for associates of Trump.
In November 2024, Axios reported that President-elect Donald Trump intended to appoint Patel to a high-profile position in the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Department of Justice. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Trump intended to remove Christopher A. Wray as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, interviewing several candidates for the position, including Patel and former Michigan representative Mike Rogers. Patel was considered as a potential nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency, although he faced a narrower path in the Senate. According to The New York Times, Susie Wiles, Trump's campaign manager, believed Patel would be a risky choice to lead the bureau, but Andrew Bailey, the Missouri attorney general, appeared too lackadaisical in meetings. On November 30, Trump announced that he would dismiss Wray and named Patel as his nominee for the position. Wray agreed to resign in December. Before his confirmation hearing, Patel began conducting policy-focused interviews. According to CNN, he was targeted in an Iranian hacking operation that month. In January 2025, nearly two dozen Republican government officials sent a letter to senators urging them to reject Patel's nomination.
In February, NBC News reported that Patel would be named the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; he was sworn in on February 24. According to The Washington Post, by March 2025, Patel was not at the bureau. On April 9, Reuters reported that he had been replaced by Daniel P. Driscoll, the secretary of the army. That month, Patel announced that Hannah Dugan, a Wisconsin circuit court judge, had been arrested for allegedly having "misdirected federal agents away from" an undocument immigrant. He provided a photograph of Dugan's arrest that potentially violated an internal policy against disclosing photographs of defendants unless necessary or public record; former attorney general Eric Holder, who implemented the policy, told CNN that the post was in violation.
Patel has been involved in the QAnon community. In 2018, a post by Q, an anonymous person or persons at the center of the conspiracy theory, read, "Kashyap Patel - name to remember". He has signed copies of The Plot Against the King (2022) with "#WWG1WGA", a QAnon message, and created the #FlannelFridays trend. In 2022, Patel said he specifically agreed with QAnon rhetoric surrounding the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the January 6 Capitol attack, and the first and second impeachments of Donald Trump. He has appeared at the ReAwaken America Tour, a far-right event that promotes QAnon. Patel promoted Italygate, a conspiracy theory that alleges that an Italian defense contractor conspired with the Central Intelligence Agency to alter the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden. Christopher C. Miller, the acting secretary of defense, was made aware of Patel's belief, and requested that the Italian government investigate the claim.
Education
Patel's educational background is not detailed in the available information. However, his career progression suggests a strong legal and political education foundation.
In summary, Kash Patel's career has been marked by significant roles in law and politics, contributing to his financial success. His net worth reflects his diversified income streams from consulting, book sales, and investments.
Patel studied criminal justice and history at the University of Richmond and graduated from the Pace University School of Law. In 2005, he began working as a public defender in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and later as a federal public defender for the Southern District of Florida. Patel began working as a junior staff member at the Department of Justice in 2012, becoming a prosecutor in the National Security Division in 2013 and working in the Counterterrorism Division in 2014. In 2017, he became a senior aide to Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he was the primary author of the Nunes memo, alleging that Federal Bureau of Investigation officials abused their authority in the FBI investigation into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials.
Patel attended Garden City High School and his senior-year quote was "Racism is man’s gravest threat—the maximum of hatred for a minimum reason", by Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel. During summers, Patel worked as a caddie at the Garden City Country Club. According to his memoir, Government Gangsters (2023), although he was interested in medical school programs, he was inspired by defense lawyers who golfed at the club. Patel graduated from the University of Richmond in 2002 with a degree in criminal justice and history. He earned a certificate in international law from the University College London and graduated from the Pace University School of Law in 2005. According to a questionnaire he sent to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Patel participated in the American Bar Association's "Judicial Intern Opportunity Program", a diversity initiative, as a student at Pace University in 2003.
After being sworn in, Patel told officials that he intended to send 1,000 agents from Washington, D.C. to other field offices in cities with higher crime rates and reassign 500 staff members to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. According to The Wall Street Journal, an official told Patel that the restructuring could cost $100 million that the agency did not have; he was undeterred. Patel removed civil service executives and replaced them with political allies, according to the Journal. The New York Times obtained an internal email from Patel in March, directing the majority of the bureau's field offices—with the exception of those in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles—to report to branch directors rather than the deputy director. In a February call with FBI officials, Patel proposed altering the bureau's physical fitness test and partnering with Ultimate Fighting Championship, while saying he would shift his operations to Nevada, where he lives, and the West Coast. He expressed interest in joining the bureau's hockey team; In March, Trump said in a speech that Patel had plans to move the FBI headquarters to an "old Department of Commerce building", suggesting further reductions in staff.
