(Ken Silva, Headline USA) MAGA diehards celebrated Thursday after the Senate on Thursday narrowly voted 51-49 to confirm Kash Patel as director of the FBI. But Patel has already backtracked on policy stances that made him popular with conservatives and libertarians in the first place.
Patel has spoken of his desire to implement major changes at the FBI, including a reduced footprint at headquarters in Washington and a renewed emphasis on the bureau’s traditional crime-fighting duties rather than the intelligence-gathering and national security work that has come to define its mandate over the past two decades.
He also raised alarm among Democrats for saying before he was nominated that he would “come after” anti-Trump “conspirators” in the federal government and the media.
However, Patel has already backtracked from some of his more flamboyant promises, including that he’d shut the down the FBI headquarters and turn it into a “museum for the deep state.”
Patel said Democrats were taking some of his comments out of context or misunderstanding the broader point that he was trying to make. Patel has also denied the idea that a list in book he authored of government officials who he said were part of a “deep state” amounted to an “enemies list,” calling that a “total mischaracterization.”
Senator John Cornyn: "Section 702 of the intelligence can be used to appropriately protect national security, but they can also be abused by those willing to cross ethical boundaries."
Kash Patel concurs, "Both statements hold truth, highlighting the urgent need for… pic.twitter.com/463DsOQmoS
— Smokahontas (@Smokahontas2024) January 30, 2025
Patel further disappointed civil libertarians and privacy advocates during his confirmation hearing last month, when he told Congress that he supports warrantless searches of U.S. communications collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Patel previously expressed support for implementing warrant requirements for FISA 702.
Additionally, Patel has displayed an ignorance of the law, and of FBI cases such as the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
For instance, Patel has promised to declassify the “Epstein client list,” when there’s no documented evidence that such a list exists (some of Epstein’s clients were listed in a black book that was already leaked to the media over a decade ago).
On Jan. 23, Epstein's Black Book will have been public for an entire decade https://t.co/KteqZMWpgk https://t.co/E2syKeuokQ pic.twitter.com/bXLPHjjPTH
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) December 1, 2024
And when Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked Patel whether a warrant is required to search through the U.S. communications collected under 702, Patel said yes—an incorrect answer.
“Under current law, they routinely access [U.S. communications] without a warrant … They’re supposed to have a good reason. But we’ve found that on hundreds of thousands of occasions, they search for Americans without a warrant,” Lee responded, correcting Patel’s incorrect answer.
Patel is a former federal defender and Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutor. He attracted Trump’s attention during the president’s first term when, as a staffer on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, Patel helped write a memo with pointed criticism of the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Patel later joined Trump’s administration, both as a counterterrorism official at the National Security Council and as chief of staff to the defense secretary.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
