The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to advance the nomination of Kash Patel to run the FBI, bringing him one step closer to confirmation.
Patel made it out of the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 12-10 along party lines, after Democrats used committee rules to delay the vote for a week to protest Patel.
“The FBI has fallen into really old habits and is long overdue for massive reform. Mr. Patel is the man to do it, and that’s why he’s being attacked so viciously right now,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) said in his opening statement.
A close ally of President Donald Trump, Patel is likely to be confirmed in the coming days by the GOP-controlled Senate. Upon confirmation, Patel will inherent an FBI with lower public trust than ever before following several high-profile scandals during the Trump and Biden administrations.
In recent years, the FBI’s scandals include its key role in pressuring social media companies to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, the abuse of FISA surveillance to investigate false claims of collusion between Trump and Russia, the raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case, the FBI’s efforts to target parents who voiced frustration at school board meetings, and a memo circulated by FBI offices that identified traditionalist Catholics as potential domestic terrorists.
Patel played a pivotal role in pushing back against the false claims about Trump and Russia as a congressional staffer and held multiple senior intelligence roles in the first Trump administration. Prior to that, Patel was an accomplished terrorism prosecutor in the Justice Department and a public defender. In between the Trump administrations, Patel launched a variety of business enterprises and became a fixture in the MAGA media circuit, emerging as a leading critic of intelligence agencies and entrenched bureaucrats.
Patel has promised to cooperate with congressional oversight and investigate the FBI’s targeting of traditionalist Catholics and concerned parents. More broadly, Patel says he intends to return the FBI to its mission of fighting terrorism and violent crime instead of using the bureau for political weaponization.
Senate Democrats have expressed concerns about Patel’s book, Government Gangsters, for containing grievances and conspiracy theories, and Patel’s role in promoting a choir of January 6th defendants who made music to raise money. They are similarly worried about the possibility of Patel pursuing political retaliation against Trump’s opponents.
Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), Judiciary Committee ranking member, accused Patel earlier this week of secretly coordinating the Trump administration’s efforts to remove senior FBI officials and FBI agents involved with investigations into the January 6th Capitol riot. Durbin said that whistleblowers came forward to his office with the allegations and has asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the matter.