There’s a common saying that reflects how a person’s friends reveal a lot about them: “Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.”

“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform in announcing that Kashyap “Kash” Patel would serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As Paul Harvey used to say in his widely popular radio broadcasts, “And now, the rest of the story”. 

After working for the first Trump administration,Patel launched Kash’s Corner, a podcast in which he offered his MAGA-tinged take on the news alongside a co-host, none other than The Epoch Times senior editor, Jan Jekielek.

The Epoch Times is a far-right conspiracy-peddling newspaper and website affiliated with Falun Gong, a fringe Chinese religious movement. If you are not already familiar with the Epoch Times, Falun Gong also founded the controversial entertainment organization, Shen Yung, the the ubiquitous dance troupe that appears regularly in Portland.

The Epoch Times and its affiliates “have grown, in part, by relying on sketchy social media tactics, pushing dangerous conspiracy theories and downplaying their connection to Falun Gong” according to a New York Times investigation.

NBC News has reported in depth about the “conspiracy-fueled” Epoch Times, citing it as “an early and aggressive promoter of election information” in the United States. The Election Integrity Partnership coalition has cited the Epoch Times as a “repeat spreader” of false and misleading voter fraud stories as well as a major promoter of debunked conspiracy theories around Dominion voting machines and the “Stop the Steal” movement, aimed at overturning the election results.” 

After the 2020 election, The Epoch Times refused to acknowledge the results, “falsely suggesting instead that legal and procedural challenges that will flip the results in favor of Trump are still ongoing,” Forbes reported. 

NBC News has also reviewed 79 episodes of Patel’s podcast, featuring Patel and Jekielek. “Together, they spun detailed but unfounded claims of conspiracies involving government officials, law enforcement agencies, the media and tech companies, among others, all aiming to rig elections, silence conservative voices and undermine Trump’s presidency and re-election,” NBC reported. 

NBC noted that in a 2022 episode of Kash’s Corner, Patel claimed the FBI used confidential sources during the Jan. 6 riots at the Capital for political purposes, asking whether rioters had been goaded by agents to commit crimes and questioning the related convictions. Did “those confidential human sources engage people who are not going to conduct criminal activity and convince them to do so? That is the definition of entrapment, which is illegal, and you can’t charge someone who’s been entrapped,” he said. 

At his January 30, 2025 Senate confirmation hearing, Patel said with a straight face, “I have no interest, no desire, and will not, If confirmed, go backwards. There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI.”

But In an interview with Trump ally Steve Bannon, Patel insisted he would go after judges, lawyers and journalists who, in Patel’s view, had improperly investigated Trump and stolen the 2020 election.  “We’re going to come after the people in the MEDIA who helped Biden rig presidential elections,” he vowed.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media — yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’re going to figure that out — but yeah, we’re putting you all on notice,” he added. “We’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.”

Should this guy be running the FBI, the premier law enforcement agency in the United States? I don’t think so.