Kashyap Pramod Patel was born in Garden City, New York, on 25 February 1980, to Pramod and Anjana Patel. Pramod is of Gujarati Indian descent and had lived in Uganda until the family were forced to flee the Amin regime in 1972. After a brief return to India they  applied for Asylum in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Canada were the first to accept their application and they moved there briefly, before eventually settling in the U.S. where Pramod found work as a financial officer. Patel's background – The child of migrants who escaped persecution – is worth setting against some of his political positions today.

It's striking that someone who has benefited from immigration now supports policies and rhetoric that, critics say, encourage the harsh treatment and   criminalisation of migrants. In his Committee testimony on Sept 17, Patel claimed that ‘approximately 3,000 US based criminal aliens either associated with criminal organisations, or re-entry violations with criminal histories who are eligible for deportation and removal from the U.S’ have been apprehended by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) supported by personnel across the FBI’s 55 field offices.

Patel's resume is strange, to say the least, for someone now running the FBI. Concerns about his lack of bureau experience were raised at the time of his appointment in February 2025, and Senator Dick Durbin accused him of Perjury during Patel's January 2025 Senate Judiciary Committee testimony when Patel stated he was unaware of plans to remove FBI agents. Conflict-of-interest concerns were also raised at the time, and have been flagged repeatedly since.

So what is his background?

Patel attended Garden City High School, where his senior year quote was ‘Racism is a man’s greatest threat – the maximum amount of hatred for a minimum reason.’ (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel). does this show that as a Young Adult, Patel had a strong understanding and opinion of racism, some people may say this clashes directly with his current opinions surrounding not only himself, but the opinions of those he is surrounded by. Patel studied Criminal Justice and History at the University of Richmond where he graduated in 2002.

During his summers Patel worked as a caddie at Garden City Country Club. It was this work that began to shape his career aspirations as he was inspired by defense lawyers he met through the club. The club has a prestigious reputation and has been ranked in the top 100 Courses in the world. It hosted the US open in 1902 and has held a number of impressive tournaments since. This link to golf intrigued me, did he meet Trump at this time? It is pure speculation though because although I have looked, I can’t find any information as to whether Trump is or has ever been a member of this club.

Patel began his legal career as a public defender in Miami-Dade County, Florida, later becoming a federal public defender for the Southern District of Florida. By 2012 he was working with the Department of Justice in a Junior position. He then worked as a prosecutor in the National Security division.  You can tell that even in his early career, he moved up quickly. By 2014 he was working in the Counter Terrorism Division.

Things start to take a different turn in 2017 when Patel left the DOJ to become senior aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  Around this time, in 2018, Patel was the primary author of the Nunes Memo, a document that accused FBI officials of abusing their authority in the investigation into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian Officials.

From there Patel's path is tightly bound to partisan national-security politics. By 2019 he was at the  National Security Council’s International organisations and alliances directorate, responsible for managing the United States relationship with international alliances and bodies,  like the United Nations and NATO. In 2020, he served as Chief of Staff to Christopher Miller, the acting secretary of Defense. By November 2020, as the Trump Administration fell apart, rumors circulated that Trump wanted Patel installed in a top intelligence role – The FBI or CIA. That preference makes me question, why was the former President so determined to put Patel in such a predominant position?

After 2021 Patel leveraged his Trump connections into business ventures, media appearances, and roles close to the former President. He joined the board of Trump Media and Technology Group in April 2022 and was involved in efforts to represent Trump in disputes with the National Archives. Reported     business ties and foreign investments have raised further questions about conflicts of interest.

Patel founded The Kash Foundation, which provided legal support for some January 6 defendants and, according to some records, acted as a conduit for legal and PR support tied to pro-Trump causes.

Bizarrely, in 2022, Patel wrote a Children's book, The plot against the king. The book has been heavily criticised as MAGA propaganda with some reviews slamming it as Indoctrination. It wouldn't be fair if I didn’t also mention that the book has many positive reviews, although the top one spells ‘great' as ‘grate', so I’ll leave the quality of that feedback to your imagination.

All of this  leads to the central puzzle. It's an impressive ascent, sure, but how has Patel landed in a role for which he had scant FBI        experience, and why does he appear so out of his depth when questioned? His September 17 statement insists the FBI is ‘making a real difference in communities across the Nation' and tackling ‘some of the most complex national security and criminal threats.’ Yet sceptics say Patel's tenure has been marked by spin, obstruction, and protection of political allies.

The fact that Patel did not serve in the FBI prior to becoming Director has been described by observers as his biggest weakness because it's a role that hinges on both managerial experience and insider knowledge of the bureau’s culture and operations.

The Epstein records saga has been particularly fraught. What should be straightforward disclosures has turned into political theatre, protests, public distrust, and new testimony from victims forced to come forward to demand action. When the public is asking for transparency, any appearance of concealment damages institutional trust, and when a director appears evasive, the cost is national. If Patel can credibly be shown to have misled Congress or to have  conflicts that compromise his duties, public confidence in the FBI will suffer as a whole, across the entire political spectrum. Unfortunately, when institutions become politicised, the people who lead them may reflect political loyalty more than institutional competence and I personally feel the current situation reflects this observation.

So, what happened? I have a feeling it might just have something to do with golf courses. It's just a feeling though - Don't take my word for it!

I'll leave you with this comment from Jasmine Crockett, September 18 2025;

‘But when I say that you are the least qualified FBI Director in the history of the FBI that is real, because you are the only one that never even served with the FBI prior to joining and we're supposed to believe that you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now, What I want to go through is to talk about why you are a failure and why honestly, we just need to tell you bye bye, and I know that you got a little upset and you put on your show for your boss, because it seems like you’re trying to save your job.’