Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, ripped into “false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations” from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
Patel, a former public defender and DOJ official, was grilled by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who accused Patel of having called for FBI headquarters to be shut down. That came on the back of a number of barbs coming from Democrats on the Committee.
Patel fired back with a fiery response.
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“If the best attacks on me are going to be false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations, the only thing this body is doing is defeating the credibility of the men and women at the FBI,” he said.
“I stood with them here in this country, in every theater of war we have. I was on the ground in service of this nation. And any accusations leveled against me that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution are grotesquely unfair,” he said.
He then pointed to an endorsement by over 300,000 law enforcement officers to be the next head of the bureau.
“Let’s ask them,” he said.
Democrats had pointed to Patel’s record and a book, “Government Gangsters,” released in 2023 that claimed that “deep state” government employees have politicized and weaponized the law enforcement agency – and explicitly called for the revamp of the FBI in a chapter dubbed “Overhauling the FBI.”
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“Things are bad. There’s no denying it,” he wrote in the book. “The FBI has gravely abused its power, threatening not only the rule of law, but the very foundations of self-government at the root of our democracy. But this isn’t the end of the story. Change is possible at the FBI and desperately needed.”
Patel received praise from Republicans on the Committee, with Chairman Chuck Grassley arguing he could help restore trust in the FBI.
“Public trust in the FBI is low,” Grassley said in his opening remarks. “Only 41% of the American public thinks the FBI is doing a good job. This is the lowest rating in a century.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, however, cited several Republican figures who have opposed Patel’s nomination, including former National Security Advisor John Bolton who he said had claimed was “forced to hire him.”
“Former CIA director Gina Haspel was reportedly threatening to resign rather than have this nominee serve under her,” Whitehouse said.
“Former Attorney General Bill Barr said this nominee has virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency, end quote.”
Patel later accused Whitehouse of using “partial quotations” in further criticisms about alleged intentions to “prosecute journalists” and his so-called ‘enemies list’ – a term Patel said he does not endorse.
Fox News’ Charles Creitz and Emma Colton contributed to this report.
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