The Senate has voted to confirm Kash Patel as President Donald Trump’s director of the FBI despite a raft of controversies and his statements calling for political persecutions.
Patel was confirmed by the Senate Thursday afternoon after clearing the Senate Judiciary Committee last week by a 12-10 party-line vote. The Trump loyalist has fiercely criticized the agency that he will lead and inherits an FBI gripped by turmoil.
In the last month, the Justice Department has forced out a group of senior FBI officials and demanded the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee gathered outside FBI headquarters before the vote to speak out against Patel, where they made a failed last-ditch plea to derail his confirmation.
“My prediction is if you vote for Kash Patel, more than any other confirmation vote you make, you will come to regret this one to your grave,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said.
“This is someone we cannot trust,” said Sen. Adam Schiff of California. “This is someone who lacks the character to do this job, someone who lacks the integrity to do this job. We know that, our Republican colleagues know that.”
He added: “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.’”
“He is already actively undermining the bureau he seeks to lead,” Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons previously told Politico. “I see in Mr. Patel an alarming willingness to do the bidding of a vengeful White House.”
The lawmakers have pointed to Patel’s commitment to going after members of the media.
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said previously during a podcast appearance alongside Steve Bannon.
“We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminal or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
Patel was grilled over his previous comments during his confirmation hearing, including about a so-called “enemies list” which features at the end of his 2023 book titled Government Gangsters. In it are the names of current of former U.S. officials he brands “members of the Executive Branch deep state.”
“It’s not an enemies list. That is a total mischaracterization,” Patel said, adding that attacks on him were taking his comments out of context.
There are also concerns over Patel’s links to Chinese fast-fashion brand Shein.
National security experts told the Wall Street Journal that they worried about Patel maintaining ties with the company as he serves as FBI director. While Shein relocated its headquarters from China to Singapore in 2021, the company still uses thousands of Chinese factories as part of its fast-fashion model.
Patel formerly consulted for Shein’s parent company, Elite Depot, and was compensated with stock worth anywhere from $1 million to $5 million, according to the financial disclosures he submitted as part of his confirmation process to lead the FBI. His financial disclosures state he plans to keep the stock.
Charles Kupperman, former deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first term who worked closely with Patel, said the 44-year-old should “divest all of his interests.”
“This is not a U.S. company and it’s a conflict of interest financially,” Kupperman said the day before Patel was confirmed.
Patel holds a roster of foreign and domestic consulting clients, none of which was revealed until his financial disclosure was made public last week, the Associated Press reports.
In addition to Shein, the document shows Patel drew income from an unusual range of sources — the Embassy of Qatar and a California company that rents out metal storage tanks.
The president nominated Patel to lead the FBI before former Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, had completed his term of 10 years at the post. Both Trump and his allies have argued that Wray turned the agency against the Republican, specifically following the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago club during the investigation of his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
During the first Trump administration, Patel worked as chief of staff at the Defense Department, and he was also a National Security Council official.
