New Delhi: Incoming US President Donald Trump’s second term could see several prominent Indian-American faces appointed to the US administration, including loyalist and former National Security Council (NSC) staffer Kashyap P. Patel.
The 44-year-old former Department of Justice (DoJ) terrorism prosecutor saw a meteoric rise during Trump’s first term, going from national security adviser and special counsel for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI)—which is in charge of oversight of the US intelligence community—to the chief of staff of former acting secretary of defence Christopher Miller between 2017 and 2021.
Patel, who goes by ‘Kash’, has remained as a part of Trump’s circle of allies, despite the former president’s defeat in the 2020 elections. In public comments, Patel promised to go after journalists and federal government officials he believed were “conspirators” in ensuring Trump’s 2020 defeat.
According to The New York Times, Trump was even keen to promote Patel to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during his first term. Patel has been criticised for being loyal to Trump to a fault and for being under qualified to hold administrative roles he previously occupied.
Patel, one-time presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy, and former governor of Louisiana Piyush ‘Bobby’ Jindal are among Trump’s Indian-American allies likely to be gunning for a post in the next administration, which is due to assume power in January 2025.
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Who is Kash Patel
The son of Indian immigrants, with roots in Gujarat, Patel hails from the predominantly white and affluent village of Garden City in Long Island, New York. Garden City had a median household income of roughly $204,000 in 2022, according to data published by the US Census Bureau.
Patel completed his undergraduate education at the University of Richmond in Virginia before returning to New York to earn his law degree, along with a certificate in international law from University College London (UCL). According to a profile on the US Department of Defence website, Patel started his legal career as a public defender in Florida. In 2013, he began work as a terrorism prosecutor in the DoJ in Washington D.C.
In 2016, Patel was thrown out of the chambers of the judge presiding over a criminal case for being incorrectly dressed. He was assisting two other lawyers in the case of a Palestinian refugee who pleaded guilty to attempting to provide support to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) terror group.
Former judge Lynn. N Hughes told Patel, at the time, to “dress like a lawyer” and to “act like a lawyer” because he had arrived in court in Houston in his travel clothes, straight off a flight from Tajikistan. In on-record conversations, judge Hughes called DoJ lawyers “sons of b******” and labelled Patel a “spy” for Washington.
A year later, Patel was appointed to the HPSCI, chaired by Republican Representative Devin Nunes. He played an important role in undermining the special counsel investigation, led by the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Mueller, into Trump’s ties with Russia and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, NYT reported.
Patel was noticed for his dogged pursuit of Christopher Steele, a British former intelligence officer whose controversial dossier for the Democratic Party alleging a conspiracy between Trump and Russia had kicked off the investigation.
Nunes eventually released a four-page memo alleging that the FBI had overstepped in its investigation into former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page who was accused of coordinating Moscow’s election interference efforts. Patel allegedly was the main author of the document, dubbed the ‘Nunes memo’.
From the Hill to the Pentagon
In 2018, Patel was out of a job after the Republicans lost control of the House and Nunes was no longer the chairman of the committee. However, the Californian Republican helped him get a job on Trump’s National Security Council (NSC)—the body which advises and assists the president on national security matters.
According to NYT, Patel, despite never being assigned to matters on Ukraine, allegedly shared “materials” with Trump on the country—fuelling the then president’s belief that Kyiv interfered in the 2016 elections and not Moscow. In an email response to the American newspaper, Patel denied the allegations.
Eventually, Trump promoted Patel to senior director for counterterrorism within the NSC, where along with acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell began purging intelligence officials perceived to be disloyal to the president.
After Trump’s loss in the 2020 elections, the US president promoted Patel to one of the most important roles at the Pentagon, the acting defence secretary’s chief of staff—where he remained for the last three months of Trump’s presidency.
Other Indian American faces in Trump’s team
Ramaswamy is another well-known Indian-American in Trump’s orbit. The former Republican presidential contender suspended his campaign in January of this year after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucus.
The 39-year-old who built his fortune in the biotechnology industry, funded most of his campaign himself and positioned himself as the logical choice for the followers of Trump if the incoming president’s legal troubles forced him out of the race.
However, as Trump outperformed all the other candidates in the primaries, Ramaswamy, quickly suspended his conspiracy theory-filled populist campaign and became one of the most recognisable faces backing him for the 47th president of the US.
Born in Ohio to parents from South India, Ramaswamy during his presidential run, had promised to cut the staff at every federal agency and promised to shut down the FBI and the department of education, among his other proposed policies.
Trump hinted at a big role for Ramaswamy during his campaign speeches, calling the Indian American “smart as hell”.
Jindal, who was governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016 and had run in the presidential primaries in 2016 before suspending his campaign and endorsing Senator Marco Rubio, is another contender for tops posts in the incoming administration.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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On a lighter note, the foreign hand will now be an Indian hand.