How Kash Patel has promoted conspiracy theories : NPR

“Once upon a time, in the Land of the Free, there lived a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer,” reads the opening line of The Plot Against The King. It’s the first in a trilogy of children’s books written by President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel.

In the books, Kash the wizard helps a noble hero named “King Donald” foil characters like “Hillary Queenton”‘ and “Comma-la-la-la.” The first book features a thinly veiled reference to the agency Trump has tapped Patel to head as “slug stables in a shadowy corner of the castle,” run by “Keeper Komey” referring to former FBI director James Comey, whom Trump fired during his first term in 2017. Another book references 2000 Mules, the thoroughly debunked film that falsely asserts the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

The children’s books are just one example of how Patel has parlayed his time serving in various national security roles in the first Trump administration to building a brand promoting pro-Trump conspiracy theories and selling merchandise. Those conspiracy theories have also been cited by Patel in past public statements promising payback for Trump’s perceived enemies.

Patel started his career as a public defender in Florida and later became a federal prosecutor. His work as a congressional aide helping Republicans defend Trump during investigations into Russian election interference in 2016 got him noticed. As a staffer for Rep. Devin Nunes, (R-Calif.), he helped author a 2018 memo that alleged the FBI and Justice Department committed surveillance abuses by omitting information in its warrant applications to monitor a Trump campaign staffer. An FBI internal watchdog report later confirmed errors and omissions on the applications, but found no evidence that the federal agencies acted with political bias.

Patel went on to roles at the National Security Council and Pentagon in Trump’s first administration. Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for the Trump transition team, told NPR that experience is why Patel’s “beyond qualified” to be FBI director. Patel did not return a request for comment.

Christopher Wray, the current FBI director, was appointed by Trump in 2017 and still has more than two years left in his 10-year term. On a Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump was asked if he intended to fire Wray to make room for Patel. “Well, I mean, it would sort of seem pretty obvious that if Kash gets in, he’s going to be taking somebody’s place, right?” Trump said. “Somebody is the man that you’re talking about.”

A focus on conspiratorial views

In addition to writing children’s books, Patel has spent the four years since Trump left office on projects closely aligned with his former boss and the MAGA movement. He was a board member and consultant for the parent company of Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform. He launched the Kash Foundation, which he has said assists defamation victims and the families of Trump supporters who have been charged for their role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

He also featured the voices of jailed Jan. 6 defendants in a song he helped produce that Trump played at his rallies. Patel described the song as an effort to raise “funds and awareness for the due process that has been hijacked for so many people who were in and around Jan. 6,” while critics called it a part of an effort to reframe the deadly insurrection attempt. (Patel has also pushed the baseless theory that Jan. 6 was primarily instigated by the FBI and its informants to hurt the MAGA movement).

Patel speaks during a Turning Point Action campaign rally for Trump in Las Vegas on Oct. 24, 2024.

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Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

Patel also became a fixture on right-wing talk shows and podcasts. His scores of appearances include shows hosted by far-right fringe figures such as Stew Peters, who is known for spreading conspiracy theories and hate speech, as well as calling for the death penalty for Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, and Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a co-host of a talk show for The Epoch Times, a media company known for spreading baseless conspiracy theories, a review by NBC found Patel shared unfounded claims about supposed conspiracies aimed at undermining Trump perpetrated by government officials, the FBI, social media platforms, the media and others.

Patel has used his exposure to sell merchandise. He sells K$H-branded wine (some of the proceeds go to charity) and supplements that he claims ‘detoxify’ the supposed negative effects of COVID vaccines. His foundation sells branded clothes, accessories, playing cards and his books.

Patel’s book for adults, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, is framed as an insider’s tell-all about his experiences during the first Trump administration. He uses the term “government gangsters” to refer to career bureaucrats who he claims are part of a corrupt “deep state.”

Patel described these “government gangsters” – as well as “people on the radical left and the mainstream media” – as “pure evil” in an interview earlier this year with a conservative Christian YouTuber.

The idea of the deep state, which was popularized by Trump and embraced by his supporters, is one of Patel’s main talking points, said Russell Muirhead, a political science professor at Dartmouth College who has co-authored books about modern conspiracy theories and democracy.

“The deep state conspiracy refers to the idea that a huge, huge raft of governmental officials — many in the executive branch answering to the president — are actually hostile to the president and want to defeat him, want to obstruct him, want to disempower his constituents and his movement,” Muirhead said.

He said whether someone believes in it or not, the deep state idea functions to legitimize a project of disabling or disrupting parts of government that don’t bend to Trump’s will.

Courting QAnon believers

The deep state is also a key feature of many modern, pro-Trump conspiracy theories, including QAnon. Adherents of QAnon claim the deep state works with a cabal of pedophile elites to secretly traffic children and harvest a chemical from their blood. They believe a government insider known as Q is working with Trump on a plan to take down the cabal and left cryptic clues on online message boards.

One of those supposed clues, known as a “Q drop,” mentioned Patel by name in 2018 with the note, “name to remember” – making him a celebrated figure in QAnon lore.

QAnon believers have long been anticipating what they call “the storm,” which they expect will include mass arrests and punishment for “the cabal” and members of the deep state. Trump’s decision to pick Patel to lead the FBI has been celebrated by the movement’s key influencers as a sign “the storm” is imminent.

For his part, Patel has been willing to court QAnon believers as he built his brand and platform in recent years.

In 2022, after Patel inscribed some copies of one of his children’s books with a QAnon slogan, he fielded questions about whether he was a believer. He claimed he used the slogan because of its ties to a movie, but did not distance himself completely, either.

“You know, the Q thing is a movement. A lot of people attached themselves to it,” Patel told pro-Trump influencer Mary Grace at the time. “I disagree with a lot of what that movement says, but I agree with what a lot of that movement says.”

Patel has tended not to focus on the pedophile part of the belief system, but he’s made more than 50 appearances on at least a dozen podcasts that have either promoted the QAnon movement or shared QAnon-related conspiracy theories.

Patel takes the stage during a campaign rally for Trump on Oct. 13, 2024 in Prescott Valley, Ariz.

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Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Patel made overtures to QAnon influencers to join Truth Social and helped promote an account called “Q” on that platform.

In an appearance on the X22 Report, a podcast and video show known for promoting QAnon, Patel told the host that his “championing cause” was “to get our people and mainstream America listening to your show rather than CNN, reading … The New York Times and The Washington Post.”

When asked about Patel’s comments about QAnon and appearances on related podcasts, Trump transition team spokesperson Pfeiffer told NPR, “This is a pathetic attempt at guilt by association.”

It is not unusual for those in Trump’s orbit to wink at the QAnon movement. Trump and Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X, who was one of Trump’s biggest financial supporters this election cycle, have both shared content related to QAnon in recent months.

Muirhead, the Dartmouth professor, noted that Patel seems willing to “embrace the whole train of conspiratorial assertions associated with or even that define Donald Trump.”

And that includes QAnon. “It delivers him to an audience of sympathetic listeners and watchers,” Muirhead said.

Concerns about retribution

Past comments Patel made promising retribution against Trump’s perceived enemies, including for what he falsely alleges was a stolen election in 2020, have resurfaced since Trump announced he wants Patel to lead the country’s top law enforcement agency. Patel’s threats have also led to concerns that he will try to use the agency to harass personal and ideological foes in a modern version of the practices of the FBI’s founding director, J. Edgar Hoover.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media,” Patel said last year on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s talk show, War Room.

“Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Patel has previously sued journalists for defamation. After a former Trump official argued on MSNBC last week that Patel is unfit to lead the FBI, she received a letter from his attorney demanding she retract certain statements she made about Patel’s record or face litigation.

Kash Patel arrives for meetings with senators on Capitol Hill on Dec. 9 in Washington, D.C. Before being nominated to lead the FBI, Patel has discussed wanting to investigate Trump’s opponents.

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When asked about these past threats, Pfeiffer, the Trump spokesperson, told NPR, “Kash Patel is going to deliver on President Trump’s mandate to restore integrity to the FBI and end the weaponization of the agency.”

On the campaign trail leading up to the November election, Trump repeated vows to get revenge and prosecute perceived foes.

On his Sunday appearance on Meet the Press Trump denied that he would direct Patel to launch investigations against his perceived political enemies but said Patel is “going to do what he thinks is right.” When pressed about whether he wanted such investigations to happen, Trump said, “If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably. They went after me. You know, they went after me and I did nothing wrong.” At another point in the interview, he mentioned the members of the congressional committee that investigated his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and said “Honestly, they should go to jail.”

Charles Kupperman, a former deputy national security adviser to Trump, told NPR he did not trust Patel when he overlapped with him at the National Security Council and said he believes appointing Patel to lead the FBI would be a mistake.

The FBI has traditionally been independent from the president, but Kupperman has concerns that could change. “Kash will be a propagandist for Donald Trump,” said Kupperman, who said he did not vote for either candidate in the last election and wrote in a name instead. “He will carry out any orders that the White House president gives him, and he will have an opportunity in the organization if he is confirmed at the FBI to invoke retribution against individuals. And it will not be a pretty picture or good for the country.”

Kupperman said he worries Patel will focus on rooting out government employees who are perceived as being disloyal to the president. He recalled a 2019 meeting where Trump had proposed Patel do that at the National Security Council, but Kupperman and others pushed back.

Now he worries such an agenda could be part of Patel’s mission if he were to head the FBI. “It will be a waste of effort and it will take our eye off of the ball of the other problems,” Kupperman said.

Patel’s book, Government Gangsters, includes an appendix of names of people he considers part of the deep state. Kupperman’s name appears on the list, though he said that won’t stop him from speaking out about how he thinks Patel is an inappropriate choice for the job.

“The fact that this individual is making the list, that is another example of why he’s not fit to be the FBI director,” Kupperman said, adding that he is not impressed with how Patel has chosen to spend the last four years. “Writing pseudo-children’s books about the king and so forth doesn’t strike me as a strong resume for an individual to become FBI director.”

For Muirhead, the prospect of having a conspiracist content creator heading an investigative agency raises another alarming possibility.

“The FBI could be used to support, to generate, conspiratorial narratives that delegitimate the opposition and empower the regime,” Muirhead said.