The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Kash Patel as FBI Director in a 51-49 vote Thursday, despite his obvious loyalty to President Donald Trump’s retribution agenda and amid lingering questions about whether he perjured himself during his confirmation hearing.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) were the only Republican senators to oppose Patel’s confirmation. In a statement ahead of the final vote, Collins said “there is a compelling need for an FBI Director who is decidedly apolitical.”
Now that he is confirmed, Patel is expected to take on the task of carrying out Trump’s own personal retribution agenda.
Patel has publicly threatened to go after Trump’s perceived enemies, and even included in his 2023 book “Government Gangsters” the names of close to 60 “members of the Executive Branch deep state” who he claims are a “dangerous threat to democracy.” Patel, during his confirmation hearing last month, claimed that this list was not an “enemies” list, but simply a “glossary” in the book. He called the so-called enemies list a “total mischaracterization,” despite his own public remarks to the contrary.
During an interview with Steve Bannon last year, Patel said he would not only go after “conspirators” in the government, but that he would also go after “conspirators” in the media, who, in his words “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”
As Republicans have consistently rallied around Patel, congressional Democrats have railed against his nomination, arguing that if confirmed, Patel will use his position to target Trump’s perceived political enemies.
Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin (D-IL) brought forth evidence to support his claim that Patel was personally involved in a “purge” of senior law enforcement officials within the bureau before being confirmed.
In a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz this month, Durbin described “highly credible information from multiple sources” suggesting that Patel had been involved in multiple firings at the FBI, and that, if the allegations are true, Patel may have perjured himself during his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
According to Durbin, as previously reported for TPM, whistleblowers revealed to him that Patel, working in conjunction with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, and members of the FBI Director’s Advisory Team, dismissed senior law enforcement officials at the FBI, as part of an early purge of DOJ staff who worked on Trump’s two criminal prosecutions as well as agents and lawyers involved in charge Jan. 6 defendants, who have since been pardoned by Trump. These dismissals were understood to be retaliatory and an act of political retribution on behalf of Trump.
Per reporting from the New York Times, at least nine officials have been fired from the FBI since the start of Trump’s presidency.
