Kash Patel, Trump’s Pick to Lead the FBI, Is a QAnon Defender

There are already plenty of reasons to be wary of Kash Patel becoming FBI director — one of which is his status among believers of QAnon  Patel has long thirsted to purge the federal government of the so-called “Deep State,” as have MAGA conspiracy theorists who are now hailing Donald Trump’s nomination of Patel to fill a role where he would be well positioned to exact vengeance on the president-elect’s enemies.

According to posts and social media clips that have resurfaced in the aftermath of Patel’s nomination, the prospective FBI director has frequently lauded QAnon believers and embraced their messaging. The unfounded, pro-Trump conspiracy theory holds that the United States is run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, and that Trump is a messianic figure who will eradicate this evil from the government.

Media Matters Senior Researcher Alex Kaplan identified social media posts by Patel in which he uses QAnon imagery, and bragged about his supposed meetings with “@Q,” a Truth Social account created shortly after the platform’s launch that has suspected links to Truth Social’s developers. In 2022, Patel even signed copies of his pro-Trump children’s book The Plot Against The King 2,000 Mules, with the phrase “WWG1WGA,” a QAnon slogan meaning “where we go one, we go all.” (Patel claimed the slogan was simply something that resonated with him from an old movie.)

The book is an election-denying sequel to his first pro-Trump children’s book, repackaging Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked conspiracy film 2,000 Mules for toddlers. On Monday, D’Souza issued a public apology to a man who sued him for defamation after the film accused him of being a “mule” who stuffed ballot boxes to rig the election against Trump, and acknowledged that the “data” film had used as the basis for its allegation of electoral fraud was bunk. 

In April 2022, Patel went on a media tour of QAnon-affiliated podcasts and digital shows to promote Truth Social — where he is a board member — to prospective new users. In one interview, Patel said that “whether it’s the Qs of the world — and I agree with some of what he does and I disagree with some of what he does — if it allows people to gather and focus on the truth and the facts, I’m all for it.” 

In a separate June 2022 interview, Patel explained his overtures to the Q community. “We try to incorporate it into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences because whoever that person is has certainly captured a widespread breadth of the MAGA and the America First movement,” he said. “And so what I try to do is — what I try to do with anything, Q or otherwise, is you can’t ignore that group of people that has such a strong dominant following.”

“Q has been so right on so many things,” Patel added. “He should get credit for all the things he has accomplished, because it’s hard to establish a movement, let’s call it that, because it’s what it is. And he’s put out so many names, you know, not just mine, but he’s put out so many great American figures who have been out there like the Johnny Ratcliffes of the world, the Whitakers, the Grenells — all these folks that were in the Trump administration that people barely knew about, they know in large part because he was able to put out their work.”

Patel also said in an interview that he was “blown away at the amount of acumen some of these people,” referring to QAnon adherents.

Media Matters notes that in the aftermath of Patel’s nomination, prominent influencers within the Q ecosphere have been celebrating his prospective ascension as the coming of “an FBI Director who sees the Q movement in a positive light,” as one post put it. 

On Sunday, retired Gen. Michael Flynn — who has become a major proponent of the conspiracy — responded to another QAnon influencer’s post celebrating Patel’s appointment with “Yup💯.” The post Flynn responded to contained a screenshot of a Q post telling followers that Kashyap Patel was a “name to remember.” 

It’s not hard to understand why the QAnon community is high on Patel. A fierce critic of the 2016 Russian election meddling investigation, Patel has long sought retribution against the “Deep State,” and has spoken publicly about prosecuting Trump’s political rivals and critics in the media. 

​​“We’re going to come after you,” Patel explained to Steve Bannon last December. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice, and Steve [Bannon], this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators.”

It’s a promise that cuts to the core of what QAnon believers desire.