FBI Nominee Kash Patel Was Targeted in an Iranian Hack: Report

Kashyap “Kash” Patel, President-elect Donald Trump‘s nominee for FBI director, was among the targets of an Iranian hack, CNN reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

The Iranian hackers accessed some of Patel’s communications, according to the news outlet. “Kash Patel was a key part of the first Trump administration’s efforts against the terrorist Iranian regime and will implement President Trump’s policies to protect America from adversaries as the FBI Director,” Alex Pfeiffer, spokesperson for Trump’s transition team, said in a statement to CNN.

Newsweek reached out to Pfeiffer for comment on Tuesday night.

This isn’t the first time the Trump campaign has been the target of a hack by nation-state actors. The New York Times reported in October that Chinese hackers tried to gain access to data on the phones of Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance, along with those owned by campaign staffers for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Patel is a fierce Trump ally, and in nominating him, Trump lauded Patel for having done an “incredible job during my First Term, where he served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Defense, Deputy Director of National intelligence, and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.”

The president-elect went on to say Patel played a “pivotal role” in “uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax,” adding that it was a key factor in his decision to tap him to lead the FBI.

Patel has publicly railed against the “deep state” political establishment and called to root out government employees deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump. He singled out many of those people in his book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” published in September 2023.

The list includes dozens of current and former government officials, some of whom didn’t know they were on it until it was pointed out on social media this week.

“Just learned I’m included on this list,” former Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur, who worked under Trump, posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday. “I’ve never met Patel or attended any meetings where he was present as far as I know.”

Patel’s nomination drew mixed reactions from Republican senators, who will determine whether he gets confirmed as FBI director.

“I got to say, all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all of the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI and clean out the corrupted partisans who sadly have burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI,” U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said on Sunday’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.

Tennessee U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty told NBC‘s Meet the Press that he encouraged Trump to nominate Patel, adding that he “represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI.”

South Dakota U.S. Senator Mike Rounds struck a more measured tone, throwing his support behind FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom Trump nominated in 2017.

“I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds said on ABC‘s This Week.

“I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now,” Rounds added.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.