Indian-American Kash Patel has been appointed as the Chief of Staff to the US Defence Secretary Chris Miller, the Pentagon has announced on Tuesday, 10 November.
This comes a day after Donald Trump fired Defence Secretary Mark Esper and appointed the National Counter Terrorism Center Director, Chris Miller, as the Acting Secretary of Defence.
Kash Patel is currently on National Security Council staff. Patel will replace Jen Stewart, who resigned earlier on Tuesday, reported news agency PTI.
Kash Pramod Patel had also served as senior counsel for counter-terrorism at the House Permanent Select Committee.
In 2019, Patel was named senior director of Counter-terrorism Directorate of the National Security Council (NSC) in the White House, reported PTI.
Patel’s Background
Patel was born to East African parents. Patel’s mother is from Tanzania and father is from Uganda. Patel was born in New York and has roots in Gujarat.
Patel’s family moved to the US from Canada in 1970.
Patel completed his schooling in New York and college in Richmond, Virginia. He did his law from New York and went to Florida, where he was a state public defender for four years. Soon, he became a federal public defender for another four years.
After Florida, Patel moved to Washington DC and started as a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice and continued for about three and a half years.
While he was employed at the Department of Justice, Patel went as a civilian to join Special Operations Command at the Department of Defence, reported PTI.
Patel sat as the Department of Justice's lawyer with Special Forces people.
He worked inter-agency collaborative targeting operations around the world, PTI reported.
After working in this position for a year, Congressman Davin Nunes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select on Intelligence Committee appointed Patel as senior counsel on counter-terrorism.
(With inputs from PTI)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)