(Image source from: rawstory.com)

Prominent Indian American lawyer and an ardent supporter of President Donald Trump, Kashyap Pramod Patel has been appointed to a key counterterrorism position in the White House.

The 38-year-old Patel, the former Senior Counsel for Counterterrorism at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has now been appointed as Senior Director of Counterterrorism Directorate of the National Security Council (NSC) in the White House, according to a report by Daily Beast.

The New York-born Patel with his roots in Gujarat, Patel is popularly known as Kash Patel. After leaving the Hill, he had joined the NSC's Directorate of International Organizations and Alliances. Now he has been promoted to this counterterrorism position, the news website reported.

The NSC is the president's main outfit for coordinating security and foreign policy matters and is led by National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Patel’s mother is from Tanzania and father from Uganda. They moved to the United States from Canada in 1970.

In an interview prior to joining the White House, Patel clarified his roots, saying: "We are Gujarati.”

His family moved to Queens in New York in the late 70s. where Patel was born and brought up.

Patel did his schooling in New York while college in Richmond, Virginia, and attended law school in New York. He went to Florida where he was a state public defender for four years and then federal public defender for another four years.

"So, lots of trials, lots of international investigations, lots of time in court, understanding the federal system and trying cases and learning how to run investigations," he said.

He later served as an international terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. for around three and a half years. During this period, he worked on cases all over the world.

While still employed by the Department of Justice, he went as a civilian to join Special Operations Command at the Department of Defense.

At the Pentagon, he sat as the Department of Justice's lawyer with Special Forces people and worked interagency collaborative targeting operations around the world.

"So basically, bringing in all aspects of American enforcement military, FBI and CIA all put in all place and targeting terrorists abroad and here, collecting information in one spot and figuring out what the best option for the US," he said.

After a year in this sensitive position, Congressman Davin Nunes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select on Intelligence Committee pulled him as senior counsel on counterterrorism.

After the elections, since April 2017, he spearheaded the Russia investigation of the House Intelligence Committee and played a key role in the drafting of a Republicans memo, which according to President Donald Trump has exposed the Opposition Democratic party’s leadership in the Russian investigation.

The New York Times described it as a "Kash Memo". Patel said it was a "great team effort".

Patel garnered a keen interest in hockey since he was six. "I still play and I spend a lot of time volunteering coaching youth hockey in the area," he said.

By Sowmya Sangam