Patel Distorts Justice Dept. Benghazi Inquiry, Inflating His Role

Donald J. Trump’s pick to be the next F.B.I. director has both exaggerated his importance in the government’s criminal inquiry into the 2012 attack and misleadingly distorted its conduct and results.

Kash Patel, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to be F.B.I. director, often burnishes his credentials as a former prosecutor even as he portrays law enforcement agencies as an inept and politicized “deep state.” A critical piece of that narrative is the investigation into the 2012 attack on a diplomatic compound and a C.I.A. annex in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.

Mr. Patel, who worked at the Justice Department from early 2014 to 2017, was involved in that inquiry. He described it in his 2023 memoir, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” and in a conversation on a September podcast of “The Shawn Ryan Show.”

But he has both exaggerated his own importance and misleadingly distorted the department’s broader effort, according to public documents and interviews with several current and former law enforcement officials familiar with the matter. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

“By the time the D.O.J. was moving in full force to compile evidence and bring prosecutions against the Benghazi terrorists, I was leading the prosecution’s efforts at Main Justice in Washington, D.C.”— “Government Gangsters”

“I was the main Justice lead prosecutor for Benghazi for awhile.”— “The Shawn Ryan Show”

Mr. Patel has repeatedly made it sound as if he led the government’s overall effort to investigate and prosecute militants involved in the 2012 attack.