Patel no stranger to quarrels

Kashyap Patel is a lawyer who has sometimes run afoul of the rules. As a lawyer in Florida, Patel, 37, entered and then dropped out of a charity bachelor auction featuring some colleagues after a blogger pointed out that his licence to practice in the state appeared out of date. In 2016, as a counterterrorism prosecutor for the Justice Department, he was berated by a federal judge who then issued an “Order on Ineptitude” directed at the entire agency. And over the summer, in a trip arranged outside official channels, he travelled to London, where he tried unsuccessfully to meet with Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier that purported to detail links between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to multiple people with knowledge of the trip. After less than a year as a Republican staff member on the House Intelligence Committee, Patel has found himself in the middle of another controversy. According to congressional sources, he is the primary author of the politically charged memo, released Friday by the committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., over the opposition of the FBI and the intelligence community, that accuses federal officials of bias against President Donald Trump. In early 2016, during a court appearance in Houston, Patel found himself in the cross hairs of Judge Lynn N. Hughes of U.S. District Court, who became incensed that Patel had used the internet credentials of another lawyer to give notice that he would be involved in a terrorism case and then did not like how he was dressed.