The justices denied petitions Monday for Poffenbarger v. Meink and Doster v. Meink — cases that had challenged the vaccine mandate but were dismissed by lower courts as moot, given that the DoD allowed service members who refused the vaccine to begin returning in 2023, and in 2025, announced incentives such as back pay to bring them back in.

In the first case, Air Force Reserve First Lt. Michael Poffenbarger filed his lawsuit in 2022, arguing that the order violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment. Poffenbarger had sought a religious exemption from the immunization and was denied, receiving a letter of reprimand and placed on the inactive list.

After a lower court dismissed his case as moot, given that the DoD had begun allowing service members to return to service, Poffenbarger appealed, seeking lost pay and retirement points. The appellate court affirmed the ruling and Poffenbarger petitioned the Supreme Court, where he was denied.

Second Lt. Hunter Doster filed suit with 17 other Air Force members, also in 2022, challenging the vaccine mandate for religious reasons. After the mandate was rescinded, they argued their case was still valid as they sought back pay and retirement points.

But in the Doster case, the lower court also noted that the plaintiffs did not request back pay in their original filing, with the appeals court affirming the ruling. The 18 plaintiffs then filed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied the case.

Roughly 17,000 service members refused the vaccine, and more than 8,400 were discharged for their decision, including 3,717 Marines, 2,041 Navy sailors, 1,841 Army soldiers and 834 Air Force and Space Force members.

From early 2023 through June 2025, 126 service members who had refused to receive the shot had returned to service.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 27, 2025, to bring back troops booted from the service for refusing the vaccine complete with “full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.”

The Defense Department and military services developed policies in response to the executive order, providing back pay for service members but also requiring them to commit to additional terms of service and deduct the wages they received while working as civilians, including Veterans Affairs disability compensation or other benefits.

Through 2022, more than 2 million troops received two doses of the vaccine, which was developed under Trump through a federal partnership between the Departments of Health and Human Services and Defense.

Between March 2020 and December 2022, the Pentagon recorded 740,942 cases of COVID-19 among troops, family members, DoD employees and contractors and 690 deaths, including 96 service members.

Tricare Prime beneficiaries who see a primary care manager at a military hospital or clinic may be able to get a virtual appointment for urgent care if their local military treatment facility is booked, Tricare officials announced Thursday.

Patients can contact the Military Health System Nurse Advice line online or by phone at 1-800-TRICARE (874-2273). A nurse will assess whether they can get a virtual appointment that day or the following.

“This is part of the Defense Health Agency’s effort to improve health care access,” said Army Lt. Col. Ryan Shubat, chief of the Defense Health Agency’s primary care and mental health health care optimization, in the announcement.

The service is offered in the United States for eligible beneficiaries aged 12 and older, but not overseas or in U.S. territories.

Providers can address common urgent care issues, officials said, such as sinus congestion and infections; coughs; allergies; sore or hoarse throat; rashes; acne; muscle and joint pain; and headaches.

The nurse will ask about a patient’s symptoms, and decide whether the symptoms can be treated virtually. If it works for the patient, the nurse will set up the virtual appointment with a health care provider. Appointments are available from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Providers can write prescriptions and send them directly to the patient’s pharmacy.

All virtual urgent care providers meet high standards for patient care, officials said. Each provider has credentials and privileges at a Defense Health Agency military hospital or clinic.

The visit is recorded in the patient’s electronic health record.

During a hearing on quality-of-life issues before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel subcommittee, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Wolfe cited a lack of available appointments for health care, and problems with Tricare’s reimbursement rates for health care providers in communities.

“What we’ve all seen over the length of our careers is a gradual erosion in the availability of that health care for our service members and their families,” Wolfe said.

This has been an issue for years, and problems with health care access have been exacerbated by new Tricare contracts implemented last year.

In spite of the time, effort and money spent on improving quality of life for service members and their families, “when you get down to the tactical level, there’s a gap,” said Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna. “They’re not feeling it day to day. They’re not feeling it around the kitchen table. They’re not feeling it when they call to get an appointment. They’re not feeling it when they try to get child care.”

The enlisted leaders talked about a range of issues, including their concerns about suicide and mental health, improvements to barracks, child care availability and uncertainty about pay related to federal shutdowns.

The services and the Defense Department have been working to increase child care slots. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised concerns about the persistent and long waitlists for military child care, citing waitlists of 7,800 children at the end of 2025.

“When I come back to ask these questions a year from now, are we still going to have a waitlist that’s 7,800 babies long?” she asked.

Warren contends the services haven’t done enough to attract and keep child care workers. The attrition rate is about 50% for child care workers in military child development centers, Warren said, and she criticized the Army, Navy and Air Force for not upgrading the pay scales by April 2025 as required by law.

When asked why they leave, workers say it’s low pay, according to Warren.

“You have the tools from Congress. We’ve already given them to you and you haven’t picked them up and used them,” she said.

However, Wolfe and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy John Perryman said they’ve been told that their services have already upgraded their pay scales, and it has made a difference in the staffing.

“We have moved out with [using] the authorities. We are making significant progress in reducing our waitlist,” Perryman said, while noting it’s not okay to have 1,400 children still waiting for care.

“Right now, we’ve got about 2,700 [children] with unmet need across the Air Force. And that’s absolutely not where we want to be,” Wolfe said. “We are committed to making sure that this number goes down over time and does not creep back up.”

But Warren said parents don’t have time to wait. “They don’t have a year that they can just set aside while they’re waiting around on a 1,400 or 2,700 waitlist. They’ve got to have child care now.”

To the Space Force and Marine Corps, she said, “You nailed it. And let’s keep it up because that’s what we’ve got to do.

“We can’t say that we are a military that cares about our families if we pretend to provide child care and then we’ve got a waitlist that’s got 7,800 babies waiting on it.”

The costs for the voluntary dental program depend on the sponsor’s military status, as well as how many people are covered in the plan. Dentists are available in the United Concordia dental network in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Active-duty service members don’t pay for dental care, but the dental program offers coverage for their family members, as well as National Guard and Reserve members and their eligible family members.

The monthly premium for one family member of an active-duty service member in pay grades E-4 and below will increase by $0.14, up to $8.79 per month. For more than one family member, the monthly premium will increase by $0.37, up to $22.85.

For sponsors in pay grades E-5 and above, the monthly premium for one family member increases by $0.19, to $11.72. The monthly premium for more than one family member will increase by $0.49, to $30.47

The largest cost increase for the dental program comes for nonmobilized Individual Ready Reserve members buying coverage for themselves and family, increasing by $1.72 a month, to $105.48.

This coverage is separate from medical coverage, and requires separate enrollment. To enroll, the sponsor must have at least one year of military service remaining. The new premiums take effect automatically for those who are already enrolled.

The dental program is a pay-ahead program, meaning payments are for the next month of coverage. The new monthly rates take effect March 1, but families will see the change in their February bill. The rates are effective through February 2027.

Beneficiaries can find out more information about enrolling and payment options here.

In 2025, many military families saw decreases in their monthly Tricare dental premiums, with some active-duty families seeing their premiums drop by nearly one-third.

Starting Feb. 28, active duty family members who live far from a military hospital or clinic, and who are enrolled in Tricare Prime Remote in the United States, will get their covered prescriptions for free.

They’ll have $0 copayments for prescriptions filled at retail network pharmacies as well as through the Tricare Pharmacy Home Delivery, according to an announcement Tuesday by the Defense Health Agency. It applies to all covered prescriptions, including generic drugs, brand-name drugs and non-formulary drugs.

“This change will help military families without access to military pharmacies keep their pharmacy costs down,” said U.S. Public Health Service Cmdr. Teisha Robertson, chief of the Pharmacy Integration Branch at the Defense Health Agency, in an announcement of the waiver. Patients can fill prescriptions at military hospitals or clinics at no cost.

The waiver will save these active duty family members $16 for a 30-day supply of generic drugs and $48 for brand-name medications filled at retail network pharmacies. For those using the mail order pharmacy, it will save $14 for a 90-day supply of generic drugs and $44 for name-brand drugs.

These families who are filling prescriptions for non-formulary drugs will save $85, and will still be required to get a medical necessity approval from Express Scripts. Otherwise they’ll have to get the prescription filled at a retail pharmacy and pay the full cost of the drug.

By law, families can enroll in Tricare Prime Remote if both the sponsor’s home and work addresses are more than 50 miles, or a one-hour drive, from a military hospital or clinic.

About 58,000 active duty family members are enrolled in Tricare Prime Remote in the United States, and will benefit from the waiver, according to Tricare officials. That number doesn’t include those enrolled in Tricare Prime Remote Overseas.

This waiver doesn’t apply to those overseas, according to Defense Health Agency officials. Active duty families enrolled in Tricare Prime Remote Overseas will still pay the pharmacy copayment.

Tricare beneficiaries don’t pay for prescriptions at military pharmacies. Active duty personnel don’t pay cost-shares or co-pays at retail pharmacies for covered medications.

Active duty family members won’t have to take action for the change to take effect, and they won’t have to file their own claims for reimbursement, officials said. Those who fill a covered prescription starting Feb. 28 will automatically have a copayment of $0.

“We welcome this new policy, which honestly is long overdue,” Eileen Huck, director of government relations for the National Military Family Association, told Military Times. “Families shouldn’t have to pay more for their prescriptions simply because they are not stationed near a [military treatment facility.]

“We appreciate that DHA recognized the needs of families in Tricare Prime Remote locations and made this change.”

In a Nov. 19 release, the VA made clear its opposition to federal funding for green energy programs in general and charging stations in particular, although the Trump administration in August was forced under court order to release up to $5 billion approved by Congress for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program to build a nationwide network of charging stations along major highways.

“In Joe Biden’s VA, the department was distracted by woke social-justice programs and green-energy boondoggles, but those days are long gone,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a VA release. “VA exists to serve veterans, and we’re making sure all of our resources go toward that noble purpose.”

The VA has yet to decide how all of the $77 million will be redirected, but Collins said that three projects have already been targeted, beginning with $10 million for upgrading VA’s Friendship House residence in Oklahoma City; $21.3 million for the MRI ward at the Providence, Rhode Island VA Medical Center; and $13.8 million to upgrade the radiation oncology unit at the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VAMC in Jackson, Mississippi.

The move to scrap the charging stations brought the VA more in line with President Donald Trump’s long-held claims that green energy programs are a wasteful concessions to climate change alarmists. He has consistently maintained that clean energy sources, such as solar and wind, cost more and don’t work as well as fossil fuel options.

Shortly after taking office last January, Trump issued an executive order — “Unleashing American Energy” — rejecting what he called former President Joe Biden’s “preposterous” emphasis on electric vehicles and calling for the elimination of regulations favoring electric vehicles over gas-powered trucks and cars.

Despite Trump’s stance, all branches of the military maintain long-standing clean energy programs, including the Army’s plan to field a fleet of non-tactical, all-electric vehicles by 2035 and efforts to put solar-powered charging stations on bases.

In a February 2023 release by the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, Kristina Manning, then-Real Property Planning Division chief at the Fort Hood Directorate of Public Works, noted, “Like many things, Fort Hood is on the cutting edge for the Army on the fielding of EV and charging stations.

“Providing charging stations for personal use supports our People First stance and contributes to the quality of life for our soldiers and families by having charging options available for EV owners,” Manning said. “These charging stations are free because they are solar and do not use any electricity from the grid.”

In the ongoing battle over climate change initiatives, Trump used the world stage in September to double down on his views that environmentalists have it all wrong.

“This climate change. It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump said in an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”

But at a White House Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump insisted that he was not opposed to electric vehicles, but rather “insane” mandates for the public to buy them.

“I like electric cars, I like all cars,” Trump said, adding that the public should have the option to buy gas-powered vehicles.

Still, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in August begrudgingly said that federal funding would resume for the NEVI program initiated by the Biden administration.

“If Congress is requiring the federal government to support charging stations, let’s cut the waste and do it right,” Duffy said in a release.

Duffy claimed that the Biden administration failed to deliver EV chargers as promised, but “Our revised NEVI guidance slashes red tape and makes it easier for states to efficiently build out this infrastructure.”

“While I don’t agree with subsidizing green energy, we will respect Congress’ will and make sure this program uses federal resources efficiently,” he said.

Russ Clark is worried that other people have been affected, too, and could unknowingly be at risk of losing their coverage.

He’s concerned that other beneficiaries aren’t checking their pay statements from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service or their bank statements and could lose coverage if their allotment has also been discontinued.

“Others may not have noticed the allotment being stopped, as it was at the same time we got our [Cost of Living Adjustment] pay increase, so someone may be thinking that the increase in the monthly paycheck was just the COLA increase,” Clark told Military Times.

Certain beneficiaries pay for Tricare Prime, Tricare Select, Tricare Young Adult, Tricare Reserve Select and Tricare Retired Reserve plans. Clark pays for Tricare Prime coverage.

The problem came about during the Jan. 1 transition of Tricare West Region beneficiaries from the previous contractor, Health Net Federal Services, to the new one, TriWest Healthcare Alliance. Tricare officials repeatedly assured West Region beneficiaries who make recurring payments by allotment that their information would be transferred automatically.

That wasn’t true for Clark.

Clark’s December pay statement showed his allotment to Tricare was stopped. During calls to Tricare and DFAS, they “assured me that I didn’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

As of March 7, the allotment has yet to be restarted. He has been making payments online to ensure he maintains coverage.

“I will pay month to month until I feel certain that DFAS won’t start this allotment again,” Clark said.

In a few months, he plans to set up auto pay using a credit card.

“We certainly apologize for any inconvenience caused by any issue with payment,” officials with the Defense Health Agency said in an email response to questions. “That said, this doesn’t seem to be a widespread issue, but for anyone who may be having issues with their payment by allotment … check with your respective managed care support contractor.”

The contractors are TriWest Healthcare Alliance in the West Region and Humana Military in the East Region. Information wasn’t available from TriWest officials regarding the allotments, and DFAS officials referred the questions to Tricare.

Military Times heard from other beneficiaries who faced a problem with their Tricare payments that differed from Clark’s. They previously made Tricare payments by credit card and suddenly, allotments started coming out of their paychecks without prior notification — and without their authorization.

These problems are aside from those experienced by beneficiaries who previously made their Tricare payments by electronic fund transfer, credit card or debit card. Those beneficiaries are required to set up their payments with TriWest because the sensitive financial information can’t be transferred between the contractors.

But many of those beneficiaries have encountered problems setting up their recurring payments. So, Tricare extended the deadline to March 31 for beneficiaries to input their recurring payment information. Those who miss this deadline will lose coverage back to Jan. 1, Tricare officials have warned. Beneficiaries looking to update TriWest with their payment information should visit www.tricare.mil/west.

The transition to the new contracts has been a troubled one for many military families and health care providers. Families have experienced difficulties with setting up their payments, finding in-network health care providers and getting referrals and authorizations processed. They’ve also endured long wait times with the TriWest call center.

In the East Region, health care providers have faced problems with receiving reimbursements, putting some at risk of closing their doors. A number have dropped Tricare patients because of the lack of payments.

Tricare, TriWest and Humana Military have taken some actions to start to address the issues.

Veterans Affairs officials plan to rapidly accelerate the rollout of the department’s new electronic health record system this year, adding 13 new sites to the deployment schedule in 2026.

In December, department leaders had announced plans to resume deployment of the controversial Oracle Cerner system in mid-2026, with a few sites implementing training and software over the next 18 months.

But in an interview with Military Times this week, VA Secretary Doug Collins called that schedule too short-sighted and slow. He promised quicker delivery on the pledge of a revamped health records system for patients and employees.

“This has been a $10 billion project that’s not going anywhere,” Collins said. “So I’m pleased to announce right now that we’re moving forward on a new plan that is going to bring by next year double or almost triple the number of hospitals online.

“We’ve worked through standardization. We’ve got some plans now that, after almost two and a half years of nothing, we’re now moving forward to get this project done. There’s a lot going on here that I’m excited about.”

On Thursday eveing, VA officials said that four sites in Michigan would go live with the new records system next year, as had been previously planned. Another nine sites will be added to that list.

The health records overhaul project, launched by President Donald Trump in 2017, was designed to bring veterans’ health records in line with military files for the first time. The project was originally scheduled to take 10 years and cost $16 billion. But nearly eight years later, only six of VA’s 170-plus medical sites are using the software.

That’s because of repeated rollout challenges surrounding the software. Former VA Secretary Denis McDonough announced a full pause of the rollout in April 2023 after concerns from investigators and lawmakers over patient safety regarding lost or missing files from active patients.

Staffers also complained to federal investigators about poor training, frequent system outages and lackluster support programs.

The total cost of the program has already reached $16 billion, with outside advocates warning that figure could rise even higher.

Still, VA and Oracle officials testified to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee two weeks ago that they were confident the program was back on track. They expressed optimism about the mid-2026 rollout plan.

Collins said since then, he has met with Oracle and VA leaders to push for a more aggressive schedule.

“They’re going to have to face me every week that they don’t get it done,” he said. “Our folks are going to understand that we have to do our part in the contract, and Oracle understands that they want to do the best job they can on their end of the contract.”

VA officials said they are “is pursuing a market-based approach to site selection for its deployments going forward” but did not same any specific locations beyond the Michigan sites.

Collins said he is confident that VA staffers will be able to get the right training and preparation ahead of any new sites being brought online.

“I think the problem was that we didn’t have enough leadership to say, ‘Let’s bring you two together and actually do it,’” he said. “I talk to people. I’m not management by email. I’m management by talking to you. I’m management by hearing from folks. And leadership is about setting a vision, saying this will get fixed.”

Collins’ pledge comes as VA is reviewing its entire workforce organization, with a goal of reducing staffing by roughly 80,000 employees this year. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have warned that trying to install the new records system without sufficient support staff could result in employee frustration and patient safety issues.

The sailor, who has not been identified, searched the name “Joseph Biden” in Military Health System Genesis, the armed service’s health record database, and a co-worker reported it as a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, otherwise known as HIPPA, according to a Navy official.

Presidential healthcare is provided by the military’s White House Medical Unit, and presidents receive treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service launched an investigation upon learning of the sailor’s action, and that probe concluded on April 24.

A Navy official told Military Times the sailor was administratively disciplined for the act and was assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, at the time.

The official declined to share the sailor’s rank or the nature of the discipline.

“At no time was the president’s personal information compromised,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday. “The record that the sailor inappropriately accessed was not the electronic health record of the President of the United States.”

Ryder added that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was notified of the attempted breach when the Navy became aware of the sailor’s actions.

Pentagon disclosure of the sailor’s effort to access Biden’s medical records come as questions circulate about the president’s mental acuity and fitness to run for re-election, particularly after the 81-year-old’s seemingly confused and muddled performance at a debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump last month.

Asked Tuesday if Austin ever questioned Biden’s decision-making abilities as commander-in-chief due to potential health conditions, Ryder answered with a quick “no.”

“We have had that discussion with the secretary in terms of monitoring all the coverage that’s out there these days,” Ryder said. “The secretary has full confidence in the president’s leadership as he has had from day one.”

It was a Friday morning in February at one of America’s biggest conservative conventions, and Donald Trump’s trusted lieutenant was on center stage, pleading with the former president’s supporters to help the now presumptive Republican nominee reclaim the White House.

Getting behind Trump was the only way to root out “government gangsters,” Patel said, at once referring to the title of his recently published memoir and the entrenched and shadowy cabal of “deep state” operatives he believes are threatening the country.

“That’s what it’s going to take” to win in November, he told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington. “An entire army.”

Then, draped in a green scarf emblazoned with a “K$H” logo he once sought to trademark, Patel announced his book’s upcoming film adaptation.

A trusted aide and swaggering campaign surrogate who mythologizes the former president while promoting conspiracy theories and his own brand, Patel is poised to take on an influential role in the federal government if Trump wins a second term. Patel has a pedigree that sets him apart from other Trump advisers, and he frequently cites his experience as a public defender, federal prosecutor, top House staffer and national security official to lend credibility to his plan to go after the very intelligence community he could one day help oversee.

There is little daylight between Patel and Trump: Patel has made it clear that he is in lockstep with the former president on most national security issues, including purging government officials deemed disloyal.

Many who worked with Patel before he joined the Trump administration said he was an ambitious if not exceptional lawyer whose quick rise and far-right tilt have left them stunned.

Tom Rooney, a former Republican congressman, worked with Patel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He described Patel as a smart and focused staffer, but said he hardly recognizes the man loudly defending the Jan. 6 rioters on far-right podcasts and radio shows.

“It’s not the same person that I knew,” Rooney said. “But Kash is still relevant and I’m not, so who’s the smart one?”

Patel, 44, declined requests for interviews and did not respond to a list of questions. He provided a statement saying he was proud of his public service and blasted The Associated Press for “taking potshots at my private life.”

Rapid rise

During Trump’s recent criminal trial in New York, Patel was part of a small group of supporters that included Republican lawmakers and Trump family members and accompanied him into court.

After a day’s testimony, Patel addressed a throng of reporters outside the courthouse, arguing Trump was the victim of an “unconstitutional circus.” His legal career provided the basis for his assertions, he said. But Patel hadn’t always wanted to be an attorney. The son of Indian immigrants, Patel grew up in Queens, New York, and had dreamed of becoming a doctor before deciding law was a better course.

After graduating from law school at Pace University, Patel failed to get a job at the prestigious law firms he’d hoped to join. Instead, he became a public defender, and spent nearly nine years in local and federal courts in Miami before joining the Justice Department.

After working there for about three years, Patel was hired as a staffer for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence led by Rep. Devin Nunes, a fierce Trump ally.

Nunes gave Patel a job running the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Patel ultimately helped author what became known as the “Nunes Memo,” a four-page report that detailed how it said the Justice Department had erred in obtaining a warrant to surveil a former Trump campaign volunteer. The memo’s release faced vehement opposition from the Justice Department. A subsequent inspector general report identified significant problems with FBI surveillance during the Russia investigation, but also found no evidence that the FBI had acted with partisan motives in conducting the probe.

The memo caught Trump’s attention, and soon Patel was working on the National Security Council and would later serve in increasingly influential roles. He was briefly the top adviser to the then-acting director of national intelligence and was tapped in November 2020 to be chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller.

Patel was interviewed as part of an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and said the former president “pre-emptively authorized” 10,000 to 20,000 troops to deploy days before the attack. A Colorado court later found that Patel was “not a credible witness” on the topic.

In November 2022, Patel appeared before a grand jury investigating Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after being granted immunity for his testimony.

FBI, CIA

In his final months in office, Trump pushed the idea of installing Patel as the deputy director at either the FBI or CIA in an effort to strengthen the president’s control of the intelligence community.

Trump dropped those plans after CIA Director Gina Haspel threatened to resign and Attorney General Bill Barr argued against such a move. “Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency,” Barr wrote in his memoir.

Not everyone feels that way. Michael Sherwin, former acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who has known Patel since the two worked in Miami, said Patel has earned Trump’s respect and that loyalty isn’t his only asset, adding that Patel is particularly well versed in issues of national security.

“He is well respected by the Trump inner circle, and he is held in very high regard. His opinion matters,” Sherwin said.

Patel has been open about what kind of changes he’d pursue if given the chance. His various proposals include reducing the FBI’s footprint in Washington and “dramatically” limiting its authority. He hopes to curb the power of the Justice Department’s Civil Division and jettison a Pentagon office that produces classified assessments of long-term trends and risks, arguing it is just a tool of the “deep state.”

Patel has said he also intends to aggressively hunt down government officials who leak information to reporters, and change the law to make it easier to sue journalists. During an interview with Steve Bannon in December, Patel said he and others “will go out and find the conspirators not just in government but in the media.”

”We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 presidential election in which Biden, the Democratic challenger, defeated Trump. “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”

Fight with Kash

In Patel’s telling, Trump is facing off in a do-or-die battle with Democrats and bureaucrats who helped steal the election, an assertion that has been rejected by federal and local officials, dozens of courts, top former campaign staffers and even Trump’s own attorney general. Patel reserves particular disdain for the media, which he has called “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen.”

Shortly after Trump left office, Patel launched Fight with Kash, an organization that funds defamation lawsuits and peddles a wide variety of merchandise, including branded socks and water bottles, sweatshirts and baseball hats, a deck of playing cards with Trump as the ace and a bumbling Joe Biden in a jester costume as the king.

The organization has since been rebranded as The Kash Foundation, a nonprofit that purports to support whistleblowers, law enforcement and education in “areas the mainstream media refuses to cover.”

Patel has said he won’t make money from the foundation and has publicly promised to be transparent about where it directs its resources. Two former FBI agents who accused the bureau of discrimination after their security clearances were revoked over their views of the Jan. 6 insurrection testified before Congress that they received money from Patel.

But the foundation has released few specifics about its finances, and Patel’s comments about his organization’s expenditures don’t appear to align with public records.

Patel said in early 2023 that his charity had distributed nearly $100,000 the previous year. The charity funded defamation lawsuits, covered the cost of sending kids to camp and provided holiday meals for the needy, Patel said. But the charity filed a report with the IRS a few months later showing it gave away only about $55,000 in 2022 to unidentified entities.

In his statement to the AP, Patel said his charity is “approaching $1 million in donations for legal funds, whistleblowers, scholarships, and support for veterans, active-duty soldiers, law enforcement, and communities affected by disasters and violent crime. ”

On a podcast in 2022, he boasted of having filed several defamation lawsuits, including one against a reporter for The New York Times. But court records show Patel did not take any necessary steps to proceed in that case after filing it in 2019 and it was dismissed two years later.

Such lawsuits suggest a broader strategy pursued by Patel, Trump and others to file often meritless lawsuits that seek to grind down political opponents and journalists, said Mark Zaid, who has represented defendants in such cases, including one funded by Patel’s charity.

“They use it to show that they’re tough and aggressive to their base to raise money,” Zaid said.

The K$H Brand

Since Trump left office, Patel has benefited from his close association with the former president.

In addition to his 2023 memoir, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel has published two children’s books that lionize Trump. “The Plot Against the King” features a thinly veiled Hillary Clinton as the villain going after “King Donald,” while Kash, a wizard called the Distinguished Discoverer, exposes a nefarious plot.

The line between his charitable work and money-making activities isn’t clear. Patel promotes “K$H” branded clothing lines for his nonprofit as well as for a company run by a close associate.

He’s also a pitchman for a variety of goods marketed to Trump supporters. One dietary supplement he’s promoting claims to be a COVID vaccine “detoxification system” made by a company whose co-founder was a defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed by people who say they were overcharged for Keto diet pills.

“Order this homerun kit to rid your body of the harms of the vax,” Patel said in a recent Truth Social post promoting the supplements.

Records show that Patel has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from his own business dealings with Trump-related entities.

He’s on the board of Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, and had a consulting contract with the company that paid him $120,000 a year.

The income from his books, clothing and endorsements is unknown, but his social media feeds show a well-traveled Patel attending high-end sporting events like the Super Bowl, Game 7 of the Stanley Cup and a UFC fight, in addition to stumping for Trump around the country.

Patel said in a 2022 podcast appearance that Truth Social was trying to incorporate QAnon, a set of conspiracy theories borne out of the idea that the government is run by a cabal of child predators, “into our overall messaging scheme to capture audiences.”

“He should get credit for all the things he has accomplished,” Patel said of the anonymous figurehead of the QAnon movement.

Patel has been a featured guest at rallies organized by Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who has been building a political movement mixing conspiracy theory with Christian nationalist ideas.

He’s also joined Trump in defending those who were charged with crimes in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, and is listed as a producer of “And Justice For All,” a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner sung by a group of defendants. In a social media post, Patel likened the song, which was briefly #1 on iTunes, to “We Are the World,” a single written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie in 1985 to benefit Africa.

Trump’s leadership PAC has paid Patel more than $300,000 since the start of last year to serve as a national security adviser to the former president, according to campaign finance records and Truth Social’s public filings. The campaign of Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican close to Trump, paid Patel $145,000 for “fundraising consulting” in 2021, campaign finance records show.

Loyal Lieutenant

Experts say the financial benefits of Patel’s loyalty could present a potential conflict in a second Trump administration.

Douglas London, a retired CIA officer who briefly overlapped with Patel while working at the White House, expressed doubt that Patel would be willing to deliver hard truths about the consequences of certain policy decisions.

“Trump wants an echo chamber and he’ll get that in Kash Patel,” he said. “I do not see Kash Patel saying, ‘Mr. President, if you do this, this bad thing’s going to happen.’”

During his CPAC appearance, Patel left no doubt about the depth of his loyalty to Trump.

“We’re blessed by God to have Donald Trump be our juggernaut of justice, to be our leader, to be our continued warrior in the arena,” Patel said.

After 10 minutes of praising the former president and blasting the media, intelligence community and Democrats, Patel left the stage and traded his blazer for a Revere Payments hoodie. He went to Bannon’s booth for a live episode of “War Room” to discuss the Christian merchant services platform he’s marketing.

The notoriously unkempt Bannon, a former Trump adviser who is influential in right-wing politics, joked about Patel’s informal attire.

“I’ve got to, you know, get my stuff out there,” Patel replied.

After the interview Patel hustled to the vendor floor, where he whipped off the hoodie and his handlers scrambled to remove flecks of fuzz before putting his blazer back on. Then he was ready — to pose for pictures with fans in front of a booth for a cellphone service he’s promoting.

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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this story.