(Headline USA) The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines on Thursday to advance the nomination of Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director.
The committee voted 12-10 to send the nomination to the Republican-controlled Senate for full consideration.
It was not immediately clear when the final confirmation vote will occur, but so far even nominees once seen as having uncertain prospects — including new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence — have been able to marshal sufficient support from Republicans eager to fall in line with Trump’s agenda.
Patel has raised alarm among defenders of the status quo, due in large part to his stated intentions to overhaul the FBI. Democrats expressed particular concerns about his vast catalog of incendiary past statements, which include calling investigators who scrutinized Trump “government gangsters” and describing at least some defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S Capitol as “political prisoners.”
At his confirmation hearing last month, Patel said Democrats were taking some of his comments out of context or misunderstanding the broader point that he was trying to make, such as when he proposed shutting down the FBI headquarters in Washington and turning it into a museum for the so-called “deep state.” And Patel denied the idea that a list in his book of government officials, who he said were part of a “deep state,” amounted to an “enemies list,” calling that a “total mischaracterization.”
Republicans, by contrast, praised Patel as the right person for the job, insisting he was needed to fix an FBI that they claim has been tainted by bias amid criminal investigations into Trump.
“The American people are sick and tired of two tiers of access, tiers of treatment and two tiers of justice. And during the Biden years, this was writ large in the acts of the DOJ and the FBI,” said GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
GOP Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida said that Patel “might not have served in the upper echelons of the FBI, but aren’t we asking this agency to set a new course? Don’t we want a nontraditional candidate at this moment in time, with extensive federal experience?”
A former Justice Department prosecutor, Patel attracted Trump’s attention during his first term when, as a staffer on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, he helped author 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 Department.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
