Republicans just gave Kash Patel, who has previously vowed to shutter the headquarters of the FBI, control over the FBI.
Only Republican senators voted to confirm Patel in a 51-49 vote, with only two GOP defectors.
Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — both of whom also voted no on President Donald Trump’s defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth — voted against handing Patel the reins to the Justice Department’s largest law enforcement agency for a 10-year term.
Which Republicans would vote no started becoming clear in the hours leading up to the vote. In a statement, Collins said Patel’s “numerous politically charged statements in his book and elsewhere discrediting the FBI” made her doubt Patel would be a “decidedly apolitical” director.
In Patel’s 2023 book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” he made a list of 60 public officials and staffers, which included members of Trump’s first administration as well as former President Joe Biden’s, claiming they were members of the “deep state.” He’s also claimed the FBI instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Murkowski also cited Patel’s “prior political activities and how they may influence his leadership” at the FBI in a statement posted immediately after she cast her vote.
“The FBI must be trusted as the federal agency that roots out crime and corruption, not focused on settling political scores,” Murkowski said. “I have been 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.”
As soon as Trump announced he had picked Patel for the role, officials and agents at the law enforcement agency started bracing for more disruption to their work and livelihoods, despite Patel’s promises during his tense confirmation hearings that he would not engage the agency in “retributive” actions.
Following his confirmation, Republicans like Sen. Cynthia Lummis welcomed Patel’s vows to change the FBI, which she noted was “a place that’s badly in need of reform.” She added that his experience as both a former prosecutor and a public defender gave her confidence in his ability to lead the agency.
“Anybody who’s worked both sides of that, criminal defense and criminal prosecution effort, has a really good sense of how to investigate crime and protect Americans’ constitutional rights at the same time,” Lummis told NOTUS. “He’ll train FBI agents well, and I further think he’ll return the FBI to what it’s supposed to be.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville also pointed to Patel’s experience as a lawyer, but he acknowledged Patel was not popular among his Democratic colleagues.
“He’s not very well liked on the Democrat side. Some of them’s going to have a tough time in the next few months once he gets in, but we need a good FBI — one that’s not weaponized,” Tuberville told NOTUS.
Senate Judiciary Democrats held a news conference in front of the FBI headquarters Thursday morning, where the committee’s top Democrat called on “a handful of Senate Republicans” to “have the courage to step out” and vote against Patel’s confirmation.
“My Senate Republican colleagues are willfully ignoring a myriad of red flags about Mr. Patel, especially his recurring instinct to threaten retribution against his perceived enemies,” Sen. Dick Durbin said after saying Patel’s confirmation would be a “political and national security disaster.”
Durbin, pointing to whistleblower accounts, has accused Patel of helping orchestrate behind-the-scenes firings of FBI officials who helped investigate Trump. Patel’s spokesperson has not directly addressed Durbin’s past letters on the subject but said the media was using “second-hand gossip to push a false narrative.”
—
Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Em Luetkemeyer contributed reporting.