US Senate confirms Kash Patel for FBI director position News
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US Senate confirms Kash Patel for FBI director position

The US Senate on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump’s appointee Kash Patel as the new director of the FBI with a party-line vote of 51-49.

Only two Republican senators voted against confirmation. Arkansas Senator Lisa Murkowski and Maine Senator Susan Collins both voted nay, following through on vows to reject the nomination based on Patel’s partisan political activities prior to his appointment.

Patel was one of the more controversial appointments made by President Trump because of his vocal criticisms of the FBI as an institution and his calls for investigations of political opponents. Patel has criticized the FBI for what he has characterized as politically motivated investigations of President Trump regarding Russian electoral interference while referencing conspiracy theories that the FBI helped orchestrate the January 6th mob attack on the US Capitol building in his book “Government Gangsters.”

In the book, Patel included an appendix that listed over 50 individuals he considered to be “corrupt actors of the first order.” The list included Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who headed the Trump/Russia interference investigation, former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as other former FBI employees or civil servants. Opponents of his confirmation saw the appendix as an “enemies list,” and the issue was raised in the confirmation hearings.

During the hearings, Patel evaded questions concerning the potential that he would use the director position to investigate political opponents, insisting that the appendix was not an “enemies list” and that calling it such was a “mischaracterization.” Patel insisted that “any accusations…that [he] would somehow put political bias before the Constitution [were] patently unfair.”

Despite these assurances, Patel refused to rule out investigations of people on the list and said only that he wouldn’t investigate people who had not broken the law.

Patel has parroted other Trump talking points including vituperations against “fake news,” the “deep state,” and the “gangsters” who run government organizations like the FBI and Department of Justice. His background includes a stint as a Florida public defender before becoming an aide on the House Intelligence Committee and later chief of staff to Trump’s first-term defense secretary Chris Miller.

With the confirmation, Patel takes a chief law enforcement position at a government agency charged with domestic intelligence and security functions. The FBI employs over 30,000 people and helps lead domestic counterterrorism and criminal investigations. The bureau also maintains an international presence with offices in foreign countries around the globe.

 

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