The Senate voted 51-49 Thursday to confirm Kash Patel, a former counterterrorism prosecutor and staunch defender of President Donald Trump, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined all 47 Democrats in opposing his nomination.
Republicans pressed ahead with the confirmation vote despite Democratic demands for an additional hearing to question Patel on an array of issues, including past threats to enact political retribution on Trump's enemies and his possible involvement in an ongoing purge of FBI personnel, which he has denied.
In Trump's first term, Patel played a key role in House GOP efforts as a staffer to former House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to thwart the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He then served as a counterterrorism advisor on the House Intelligence Committee before being elevated to Trump's National Security Council.
After the 2020 election, Patel emerged as an aggressive backer of Trump who claimed that the FBI, along with the news media and other institutions, was teeming with conspirators plotting to destroy Trump. At the same time, records show that Patel made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year off the brand he built as a Trump loyalist, including from merchandise marketed to Trump supporters and emblazoned with his trademarked "K$H" heraldry.
At Patel's confirmation hearing, Democrats resurrected many of the statements he made in those years in exile, including vows to "come after" people who questioned Trump's allegations that the 2020 election was rigged for Joe Biden, assertions that the FBI planned the Jan. 6 insurrection as a false-flag operation and other incendiary remarks from hundreds of interviews and a book he wrote called "Government Gangsters."
Trump himself was said by an anonymous staffer to describe Patel as "kind of crazy," according to The Atlantic, but also suggested that "sometimes you need a little crazy." Republican lawmakers have largely agreed with the president's qualifier. Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said that Patel's vow to fire FBI officials was a necessary measure for an agency that was biased against conservatives and “long overdue for massive reform.”
Others worry that far from making the FBI a more accountable and orderly body, Patel would use the FBI to enforce Trump's wishes, no matter how unlawful, above the good of the country.
“The idea that he is going to become the FBI director is appalling,” Charles Kupperman, a former deputy national security adviser for Trump, told the Washington Post. “His legal career is modest at best. His ideas are ludicrous.”
Since Trump nominated him as FBI director, Patel has alternated between defiance and downplaying or denying his record, often claiming to have no knowledge of what Democrats were raising. When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., questioned him over his association with far-right podcaster Stew Peters, Patel claimed not to know who Peters was despite appearing on his podcast eight times, then insisted that he was only there to “de-vow [far-right podcasters] of their false impressions and to talk to them about the truth.”
At other points during his confirmation hearing, Patel defended himself from accusations that a list he published of 60 "members of the executive branch deep state" was tantamount to an "enemies list," calling the idea a “total mischaracterization.” But when pressed further, he refused to say explicitly that he would not use the FBI against people on the list, saying only that he would not investigate anyone unless they had broken the law.
Patel also refused to say that he would keep the FBI politically independent and disobey or resign over illegal orders from the White House, breaking with past FBI director nominees who have typically made those assurances.
While Patel did say that “all F.B.I. employees will be protected against political retribution," an apparent reversal from his previous statements, Trump administration officials were already removing senior FBI leaders, raising concerns from Democrats that Patel may have been involved in the opening stages of a potential purge. FBI officials reportedly submitted a list of around 5,000 agents, analysts and support staff members who worked on the cases against Jan. 6 insurrectionists and are likely targets for the mass firings that Trump has said he would enact.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, posting on X to explain her vote against Patel, wrote that she was "disappointed that when he had the opportunity to push back on the administration’s decision to force the FBI to provide a list of agents involved in the January 6 investigations and prosecutions, he failed to do so."
Patel is not the only controversial Trump nominee, but his role as FBI director would put him in a uniquely powerful position compared to other agency heads. That position, Yale University senior lecturer and former FBI agent
Patel's critics argue that he does not pass the smell test.
"It is heartbreaking to see so many of my Republican colleagues, many of whom I admire, put loyalty to Donald Trump ahead of loyalty to this country, and more specifically loyalty to that sacred principle, the rule of law," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in a floor speech. "My prediction is that if you vote for Kash Patel, more than any other confirmation vote you make, you will come to regret this one to your grave.”
