The Senate confirmed Kash Patel to be FBI director Thursday in a 51-49 vote after Democrats attempted to draw out the confirmation process.
Patel is the 19th of President Donald Trump’s nominees to be confirmed, continuing a record-breaking pace of Senate confirmations that outpaces the past three administrations.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joined every Democrat in voting against Trump’s nominee.
Patel served as the senior director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council and deputy director of national intelligence during the previous Trump administration.
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed his support for Patel on the Senate floor Tuesday, pointing out that while Patel’s resume doesn’t look like that of a typical FBI director, “we aren’t living in normal times.” Patel is the “right man at the right time,” Grassley said.
“Mr. Patel served as a public defender, a counterterrorism prosecutor under President Obama and a House staffer. He’s fought for transparency and accountability in the government,” Grassley said. “He [poses] a threat to the existing system – a system that has retaliated against whistleblowers, engaged in unprecedented lawfare against the President and the American people and obstructed congressional oversight. Mr. Patel will end these abuses. He will restore the FBI to its essential mission of keeping Americans safe.”
Patel has previously called to shut down the FBI’s headquarters, saying, “I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on Day 1 and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” on a podcast episode of the “Shawn Ryan Show” in September.
In an op-ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal in January, Patel revised his vision for a new FBI, starting off with rebuilding the public’s trust in the agency, increasing congressional oversight, apprehending more criminals by letting “good cops be cops” and streamlining operations within the agency.
Republican Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt posted a video in support of Patel on Thursday morning saying, “He’s coming to town to reform an agency that desperately needs it,” referencing the FBI’s handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop among other issues.
Patel faced staunch opposition from the Democratic senators. Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons gave Patel scathing remarks on MSNBC Reports, kicking off his Feb. 15 interview with a simple statement, “We should vote down Kash Patel.”
“He couldn’t answer the key questions about political independence […] I asked those same questions of Chris Ray, a Republican nominated by Trump who I voted to confirm because he correctly answered it’s critical for the FBI director to be independent, to be willing to resign rather than carry out an illegal order, and to refuse to initiate an investigation if it was for partisan political purposes,” Coons said. “Kash Patel didn’t pass that test and I will vote against him.”
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