Kashyap Pramod Vinod Patel[1][2] (born February 25, 1980) is an American lawyer, former federal prosecutor and official, and conspiracy theorist[discuss].

Patel was instrumental in drafting the Nunes memo in 2018, which alleged errors in the FBI application for a surveillance warrant of a Trump 2016 campaign aide.

[3] Kashyap Pramod Vinod Patel[1][2] was born on February 25, 1980,[4] in Garden City, New York, to Indian Gujarati immigrant parents.

[13][14] As a public defender he represented clients charged with felonies including international drug trafficking, murder, firearms violations, and bulk cash smuggling.

[14][15] In 2014, Patel was hired as a trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice National Security Division, where he simultaneously served as a legal liaison to the Joint Special Operations Command.

[16] The New York Times opined that the memo was widely dismissed as "biased" containing "cherry-picked facts", but "it galvanized President Trump's allies and made Mr. Patel a hero among them".

[24] According to The Wall Street Journal, Patel led a secret mission to Damascus in early 2020 to negotiate the release of Majd Kamalmaz and journalist Austin Tice, both of whom were being held by the Syrian government.

[21] In an October 2019 story, Politico, citing an anonymous source it reported had formerly worked at the White House, wrote that Patel had "unique access" to Trump and had provided "out of scope" advice to him on the United States' Ukraine policy.

[44] Patel reportedly argued that Esper was disloyal to Trump by refusing to deploy military troops to Washington to quell the George Floyd protests.

[45] Based on interviews with defense experts, Alex Ward of Vox suggested that Patel's appointment was "not sinister", would "not change much", and may have served an effort to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

[47] After the November 2020 election, Patel reportedly blocked some Department of Defense officials from helping the Biden administration transition, according to NBC.

[17] As chief of staff, Patel was designated to lead the Department of Defense's coordination with Joe Biden's presidential transition, and also supported a departmental initiative to separate the National Security Agency from the U.S. Cyber Command.

[49] This proposal faced significant resistance, including from Attorney General William Barr, who wrote in his memoir that Patel would become FBI director only "over my dead body".

[50][47][49] In his last weeks in office, Trump planned to appoint Patel as CIA Deputy Director, replacing Vaughn Bishop but interventions from Vice President Mike Pence and White House counsel Pat Cipollone stopped that.

[53] Patel promoted several pro-Trump conspiracy theories and appeared on podcasts hosted by alt-right personalities such as Stew Peters[54] and co-hosted a talk show on The Epoch Times, a far-right Falun Gong-affiliated media organization.

[54] Patel is the author of a 2022 children's picture book, titled The Plot Against the King, which falsely argues that the Steele dossier was used as evidence to initiate the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

On June 19, 2022, Trump sent a letter to the National Archives naming Patel and John Solomon as "representatives for access to Presidential records of my administration".

[62]Patel's remarks came during concurrent reporting in The New York Times about "a series of plans by Mr. Trump and his allies that would upend core elements of American governance, democracy, foreign policy and the rule of law if he regained the White House".

[62][63][64] In December 2024, The New York Times reported that Patel had made several misleading claims about his role in the 2012 Benghazi attack investigation while at the Department of Justice.

According to current and former law enforcement officials interviewed by the Times, Patel overstated his importance in the investigation and distorted the department's broader efforts.

While Patel claimed he was "leading the prosecution's efforts at Main Justice", officials said he held a junior position in the counterterrorism section supporting the investigation, which was run by prosecutors at the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C., along with FBI agents and analysts.

In October 2022, Patel was summoned to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the matter, but he declined to answer questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Patel was asked about a remark he had previously made about prosecuting Justice Department officials on racketeering charges "for criminally organizing the United States government to break the law to rig presidential elections".

Committee chair Chuck Grassley posted on social media "These latest allegations ... don't hold a candle to Patel's character + credibility.

"[87] Although not known to the public until two days after the Senate committee hearing, Patel had filed paperwork disclosing his consulting firm Trishul, which had Qatar as a client.

[96] Concerning the idea of Patel holding on to the restricted shares while working as director of the FBI, the following was stated by Kathleen Clark, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, who specializes in government ethics:[98]It gives him a financial incentive not to take any actions that would undermine the value of Trump Media.

Patel promoted the conspiracy theory that Trump supporter and Oath Keeper Ray Epps was a paid undercover FBI agent who provoked rioters to enter the Capitol.

According to Media Matters, Patel shared an image featuring a flaming Q on it and went on multiple QAnon shows in order to urge members to join Truth Social.

The court ruled that "Patel's bare conclusory allegation that CNN acted with actual malice was without factual support and insufficient to withstand demurrer.

[114] In 2014, according to the legal website Above the Law, Patel agreed to participate in a "bachelor auction" of "very handsome lawyers" to benefit Switchboard of Miami, a social services organization.