Kash Patel Wins Senate Confirmation as New FBI Director
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s most controversial agency appointment so far won final approval Thursday when the Senate voted to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director.
Patel has harshly criticized the FBI under its previous leadership and pledged dramatic changes.
He is taking over only days after dozens of senior FBI officials were fired and thousands of agents who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol face the possibility of layoffs. President Donald Trump has said he expects some of them to be fired.
Hours before the vote, top Senate Democrats held a press conference outside the FBI headquarters to warn against Patel.
“He is a yes-man for President Trump,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.
Other Democrats said he lacks experience to lead the FBI and is too politically partisan to objectively enforce laws.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said, “The only qualification Kash Patel has to be FBI director is that when everyone else in the first Trump administration said, ‘No, I won’t do that, that crosses moral, ethical and legal lines,’ Kash Patel said, ‘Sign me up.’”
Patel has served as a public defender, a Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutor and a House Intelligence Committee staff member. During Trump’s first presidential term, he was a National Security Council counterterrorism official and chief of staff to the Defense secretary.
He told the Senate that he would try to return the FBI to traditional crime-fighting, particularly against drug cartels. He planned to de-emphasize the intelligence gathering and national security investigations that marked much of the FBI’s efforts in the past two decades.
The vote to confirm him split sharply along party lines with all but two Republicans voting for him. The vote was 51-to-49 to confirm.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine were the only Republicans who voted against him.
Patel is Trump’s 19th agency appointment. All of them have won approval in a Congress dominated by Republicans.
During the confirmation hearing, Patel said he would not fire any FBI agents who were only doing their jobs while investigating allegations Trump incited the Jan. 6 riot. Only agents who used their authority in a way that Republicans say was “weaponized” against conservatives are at risk, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“There will be no politicization at the FBI,” Patel said. “There will be no retributive action.”
But Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the committee’s top Democrat, said he had information Patel was not telling the truth. He said Patel secretly participated in targeting FBI agents for retaliation.
Republicans said Patel was likely to bring the FBI under control after demonstrating too much independence in deciding who gets arrested.
“Patel wants to make the FBI accountable once again -– get back the reputation that the FBI has had historically for law enforcement,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “He wants to hold the FBI accountable to Congress, to the president and, most importantly, to the people they serve — the American taxpayer.”
Opposition to Patel was fueled largely by his previous inflammatory remarks on social media, in podcasts and in media interviews.
At one point, he said he would shut down the FBI’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and turn it into a museum demonstrating the evils of politicized law enforcement.
Patel has promoted conspiracy theories about 2020 presidential election fraud, COVID-19 vaccines and allegations the FBI instigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
His business ventures have included selling pro-Trump merchandise, producing an anthem titled “Justice for All” that supported Jan. 6 rioters and writing a children’s book called “The Plot Against The King” in which he is portrayed as a wizard defending “King Donald [Trump].”
Patel is being appointed to a 10-year term. He replaces Christopher Wray, who resigned after seven years as FBI director.
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