Kash Patel cleared a key procedural hurdle on Tuesday on his way to directing the FBI in a 48-45 vote along party lines, paving the way for a final confirmation vote in the coming days.
Patel faced attacks from Democrats over his lack of law enforcement experience — something Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley acknowledged in a speech on the floor before the motion to proceed with his nomination.
“Mr. Patel’s resume doesn’t look like a normal one for FBI director, although everybody knows, in this Congress and maybe in the United States, that we’re not living in normal times,” Grassley said. “The FBI has been infected by politicization, and this storied agency has been weaponized against political opponents. Mr. Patel’s the right man at the right time.”
Patel has vowed drastic changes to the FBI if confirmed. In September 2024, Patel said on a podcast he would “shut down” the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover Building and turn it into “a museum of the deep state.”
During his committee hearings, Patel would not explicitly tell senators whether or not he would refuse an illegal order from the president, but he did promise he would not direct the FBI to engage in “retributive” actions, especially against those named in his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” which President Trump lauded as “the roadmap to end the Deep State’s reign” in a 2023 Truth Social post.
Patel’s nomination passed out of the Judiciary Committee along party lines last week after the committee’s Democrats made a show of delaying his consideration. They wanted another hearing with Patel to ask about his involvement in leadership shake-ups at the FBI.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat, alleged last week that Patel orchestrated removals of FBI officials who were involved in investigations of Trump.
In a letter, Durbin asked the Department of Justice’s inspector general to look into Patel’s involvement in those decisions, especially in light of Patel’s statements during his confirmation hearings that he was unaware of any plans to terminate those officials. Without mentioning Durbin’s letter, Patel’s spokesperson seemed last week to deny these accusations.
—
Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.