Trump's FBI pick Kash Patel has a history of suing perceived adversaries

Kash Patel has taken his perceived adversaries to court for years. Now that he’s President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the FBI, critics are concerned he’ll use the bureau’s vast resources for revenge.

Most of the cases didn’t go far. Nearly all were dismissed by judges or withdrawn by Patel. But his earlier promises to “come after” the media and root out the so-called government “deep state” are facing fresh examination as the U.S. Senate weighs whether to confirm him as the next director of the nation’s top investigative law enforcement agency.

Bloomberg News identified six cases that Patel has filed since 2019. Four involved defamation claims. The other two were against a federal agency and former U.S. officials that Patel accused of violating his rights. Taken together, they show how Patel has taken action in what he described in a 2023 book as a “battle” against “government gangsters” and “peddlers of propaganda.”

“The way to judge someone’s future actions is to, at least in part, to assess what their prior conduct has been,” said Mark Zaid, an attorney who recently received a letter from Patel’s lawyer demanding his client retract critical comments or face legal action.

Patel has a history of “lawfare,” Zaid said, a term that refers to using the legal system to damage or intimidate adversaries. His client, Olivia Troye, who served as a senior aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, rebuffed Patel’s retraction demand.

A spokesperson for Patel deferred to the Trump transition team.

In a statement, Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump transition spokesperson, said Patel “is going to end the weaponization of law enforcement” and that the “FBI will target crime, not law-abiding individuals with Kash leading the bureau.”

Republicans will control the Senate next year and have largely thrown support behind Patel, though several GOP members said they’re scrutinizing his record.

In February, Patel told NBC that his December 2023 comments that he would “come after” the media and others were taken out of context, and that he was referring to people who broke the law.

Patel would replace outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray, who announced he will resign before Trump is sworn in. Wray, who was nominated by Trump during his first term, won’t serve his full 10-year term — one of a series of reforms adopted in the 1970s to cabin the power of both the bureau and its director.

Claim Tossed

Like Trump, Patel has used his lawsuits to broadly criticize the media and current and former government officials. Court records also show that he’s helped others sue their adversaries. A legal defense fund he runs contributed $7,500 to support a defamation case brought by former Trump administration official Richard Grenell against Troye.

Patel has pressed claims against officials from Trump’s first term who fell out with the former president over probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In September 2023, Patel sued Wray and former Justice Department officials over a 2017 grand jury subpoena for his communication records, alleging it was illegitimate and retaliatory for his efforts to scrutinize the origins of the Russia investigation.

The lawsuit began with claims that the “awesome and chilling power of our federal law enforcement agencies has been weaponized against the American people.”

Patel lost the case. A federal judge in Washington this fall rejected what he described as an attempt by Patel to expand what the U.S. Supreme Court has said should be limited circumstances when federal officials can face damages claims. Patel didn’t appeal.

The Justice Department’s inspector general recently issued a report on the collection of email and phone records of journalists and members of Congress and their staffs. The report didn’t include names but CNN reported that it covered the subpoena for Patel’s records.

The watchdog said it didn’t “find any evidence of retaliatory or political motivation” by career prosecutors who sought the records and that no witnesses said that high-level officials “directed the decisions.”

Dropped, Dismissed

Patel worked for the House Intelligence Committee and served in senior national security posts in the Trump administration. Patel sued the Defense Department in May 2023, suggesting it was “unreasonably” delaying a review of his memoir manuscript because he was critical of government officials.

Patel withdrew the case two months later and his book was published that fall.

Patel’s defamation cases have featured anti-media rhetoric and splashy high-dollar demands. A November 2019 lawsuit against Politico seeking $25 million began with references to “partisan hacks and character assassins.” A case he filed the same month against the New York Times seeking $44 million accused a reporter of promoting “false facts” to further the paper’s “agendas and preconceived narratives.”

But he later dropped both cases, Virginia court records show. Patel pulled the New York Times lawsuit in August 2021. A spokesperson for the Times said that Patel didn’t pursue the case after he filed it. Patel’s lawyer moved to withdraw the Politico complaint in late 2021. Politico’s lawyers said in court papers that the judge had signaled he was preparing to toss the case.

In December 2020, Patel filed a $50 million lawsuit against CNN. A judge dismissed the case, finding it fell short on multiple levels. Patel appealed. The Virginia Court of Appeals heard arguments this year and hasn’t yet ruled.

In June 2023, Patel filed a defamation lawsuit in Nevada federal court against Jim Stewartson, a self-described “anti-disinformation activist” who had been critical of Patel. The court entered a default against Stewartson after he failed to respond and there’s been no activity in the case since then.

In an interview via LinkedIn, Stewartson claimed Patel’s lawyer didn’t properly serve him with a copy and that if that happened, he would “deal with it.” He called the defamation claim “frivolous.”