On November 5, Republican nominee Donald Trump emerged victorious against Democrat Kamala Harris in the US Presidential elections. He will now be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States. The billionaire has once again reached the White House and will now be looking to assemble a loyalist core team to implement his policies. The names of Robert Kennedy Jr, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy have been doing the rounds among others. The name of Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel is now being touted as the next CIA chief under the new look Trump administration.

Kashyap Pramod “Kash” Patel is an American attorney and former government official who served as a U.S. National Security Council official, senior advisor to the acting Director of National Intelligence, and chief of staff to the acting United States secretary of defense during the Trump presidency. A member of the Republican Party, Patel previously worked as a senior aide to Congressman Devin Nunes.

Earlier life of ‘Kash’ Patel

Kash Patel was born in 1980 in New York to Indian immigrant parents who hailed from Gujarat. According to The Atlantic, his father fled Idi Amin ruled Uganda in the 1970s and immigrated to the United States from East Africa, via Canada. His father worked for an aviation firm as a financial officer. He received a degree in criminal justice and history from the University of Richmond in 2002. He then secured a certificate in international law from University College London in 2004 and earned a Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law in 2005.

After graduating from law school in 2005, Patel worked as a public defender in Florida for eight years, first in the Miami-Dade County public defender’s office and later as a federal public defender. As a public defender he represented clients charged with felonies including international drug trafficking, murder, firearms violations, and bulk cash smuggling.

Patel’s connection with Trump

Patel was hired in February 2019 as a staffer for President Trump’s National Security Council (NSC), working in the International Organizations and Alliances directorate, and in July 2019 became Senior Director of the Counterterrorism Directorate, a new position created for him. According to The Wall Street Journal, Patel has also led a secret mission to Damascus in early 2020.

He had served as the Principal Deputy to the Acting Director of National Intelligence under the previous administration, and oversaw the operations of all 17 intelligence community agencies. Patel served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. In that capacity, he oversaw the execution of several of President Donald Trump’s top priorities, including eliminating ISIS and Al-Qa’ida leadership such as al-Baghdadi and Qasem al-Rimi, and the safe repatriation of numerous American hostages.

In February 2020, Patel moved to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), becoming a Principal Deputy to Acting Director Richard Grenell. Later that month, Patel was part of Trump’s entourage during the state visit of the United States to the Republic of India and was noted in press reports as one of two Americans of Indian descent to accompany the president.

The Indian-origin American is considered the ‘ultimate Trump loyalist,’ and played a key role in helping Republicans discredit the Russia election interference probe. The former Republican House staffer also worked in high-ranking staff roles within the defense and intelligence communities for the previous Trump administration.

Patel’s comments on the Ram Mandir

Patel is a practising Hindu and has strongly defended his faith in the face of attacks from left-leaning Western mouthpieces. During the Ram Temple consecration, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expressed concerns which was published by sections of the US press, Patel questioned this partisan reporting, “To bring things really up to date, the opening of Ram’s Temple, when PM Modi went there, all the Washington newspapers only covered the last 50 years of history. They forgot the 500 preceding years.”

“Whether or not you are Hindu or Muslim, there was a Hindu temple there for one of the quintessential gods in the Hindu pantheon in 1500 that was toppled, and they have been trying to get it back for 500 years. But the Washington establishment forgot that part of history to put on what I believe is a disinformation campaign that’s harmful to India and the PM’s position. And they’re using that because I think they liken Trump and Modi as kind of similar figures, and the establishment class in Washington doesn’t want that to be the case.” Patel said.

Trump has recently taken to social media to back the Hindu community and has asserted that he will take action against atrocities being committed against Hindus across the world. The statement was perhaps the first of its kind from a President of the United States. Trump is also looking to add several Indian Americans and Hindus to his core team with the likes of Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, and Tulsi Gabbard tipped for prominent roles. With the likes of Kash Patel now being positioned as the next CIA chief, the new look Trump administration is fast taking shape.