Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI, failed to divulge an important set of corporate ties on the financial disclosure form and questionnaire he was required to fill out as part of his Senate confirmation process.
These connections involve a land purchase he made in Virginia with a friend through a chain of limited liability corporations in which Patel held an interest. Patel’s filings acknowledge his ownership of the property, but the lack of disclosure of these LLCs obscures the partnership he formed when acquiring this undeveloped lot.
Here’s what happened. On November 1, 2021, Patel registered a company called Skeleton Coast in Nevada. That same day another LLC named Dons of Marbury was created in Nevada, with two officers—Patel’s Skeleton Coast and a Virginia-based firm, NextGen Building & Management LLC.
NextGen Building is a real estate development company founded by realtor Jordan Shahin, a friend of Patel who plays with him on an ice hockey team called the Dons that competes in a Washington, DC, league. According to a recent Washington Examiner article on Patel’s hockey hobby, Shahin has “grown close” to Patel in recent years.
Patel and Shahin registered two other LLCs in Nevada on November 1, 2021, according to Nevada state business records: Monarchs of Marbury LLC and Marbury Empires LLC. For each company, two officers were listed: Patel’s Skeleton Coast and Shahin’s NextGen Building.
Several months later, on March 7, 2022, Marbury Empires purchased a 3.64-acre vacant lot in Chantilly, Virginia, for $550,000, according to Loudon County property records. The land abuts a development named Marbury Estates. A year earlier it had been listed for sale for $850,000, according to Zillow. (The sellers were two companies, Bethany LLC and 931 Bonnie Brae LLC. Their owners are not publicly known.)
Eight months after Marbury Empires LLC bought this property, Patel and Shahin changed the officers of this company, removing Skeleton Coast and NextGen Building and replacing them with the Dons of Marbury LLC as the sole officer. This placed a layer of corporate ownership between the companies for which Patel and Shahin were publicly identified as officers and the LLC that purchased the Virginia property.
In April 2023, the undeveloped lot, still owned by Marbury Empires LLC, was listed for sale for $1,095,000—about twice what Patel and Shahin had paid for it. Two months later, it was taken off the market. This past October it was again listed for sale, this time for $1.8 million. As of Friday, the listing remained active.
On the questionnaire that Patel filled out for the Senate Judiciary Committee, he disclosed he was a managing member of Skeleton Coast and noted that his equity interest in this LLC was $773,357. He did not disclose his interest in Dons of Marbury, Monarchs of Marbury, or Marbury Empires.
On his financial disclosure form, he likewise recorded his position as an officer of Skeleton Coast, but on this document he said the LLC had no value (contradicting his Senate questionnaire). He did report on this form that he owned undeveloped land in Chantilly worth between $500,001 and $1 million dollars. He did not disclose his ties to any of the Marbury LLCs.
The financial disclosure form Patel filled out required him to report “all positions as an officer, director, trustee, general partner, proprietor, representative, employee, or consultant.” And the Senate questionnaire instructed him to list all “corporations, companies, or other enterprises [and] partnerships…with which you have been affiliated as an officer, director, partner, proprietor, or employee since graduation from college.” Patel appears to have had a controlling or significant interest in the LLC that purchased the Chantilly land through two other LLCs he set up, yet he did not disclose two of these three firms.
Because the rules for financial disclosures can provide wiggle room, it’s unclear if Patel violated any in not revealing the LLCs that he and Shahin used to purchase this land. But for a national security position, it’s important that all significant financial relationships be revealed. And Patel kept these interactions hidden.
Patel and a spokesperson for Patel did not respond to queries about this land deal and the LLCs he did not disclose. Shahin did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The missing LLCs are not the only problem with Patel’s disclosures. Investigative journalist Roger Sollenberger revealed this week that Patel had failed to acknowledge his financial ties to two companies connected to a specialist in off-shore banking. And Patel did not file his financial disclosure statement until two days after the Senate Judiciary Committee held his confirmation hearing. That meant senators at this session could not ask him about any of the questions his disclosures (or lack thereof) have raised. This includes questions about a payment from a Kremlin-linked source, Patel’s stake in a Chinese manufacturing firm, and money he received for “consulting” work for Qatar that he has not publicly explained.
On Thursday—after Republicans on the committee voted to approve his nomination and send it to the Senate floor—Senate Democrats sent Patel a list of queries. Several referred to unresolved matters related to his disclosures. One concerned the story first reported by Mother Jones that Patel received $25,000 from a Ukrainian-Russian-American filmmaker who has worked for a propaganda operation funded by Vladimir Putin. None of the questions related to Patel’s partnership with Shahin and the LLCs he did not mention.
