The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday in a party-line vote of 12-10 to advance the nomination of Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The vote came after Democrats were able to force a one-week delay to his vote within the committee.
Patel's nomination has been among the more contentious choices among President Trump's nominees. Democrats on the committee accused Patel of having an "enemy's list." Democrats claimed Patel created a list of President Trump's political opponents that would be subject to FBI investigations.
Democrats called on Patel to return to the committee to answer additional questions, but Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley did not heed their call. Sen. Amy Klobuchar challenged Patel during a recent Judiciary Committee hearing, when she referenced a list in Patel's 2023 book "Government Gangsters."
Patel denied such a list exists.
“It’s not an enemies list. That is a total mischaracterization,” he said.
More broadly, Patel denied accusations that he would use his office to seek political retribution.
"Any accusations leveled against me that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution are grotesquely unfair," Patel said during the hearing. "And I will have you reminded that I have been endorsed by over 300,000 law enforcement officers to become the next director of the FBI."
It appears Patel has enough support in the Senate to be confirmed. No Republicans have spoken in opposition to his nomination so far, and he would not need any Democratic support to receive a confirming vote.
"Mr. Patel has undergone a rigorous vetting," Grassley said. "Before his hearing, he produced more than a thousand pages of records and disclosed over a thousand interviews. He underwent an FBI background investigation, produced a financial disclosure, and worked with ethics officials to identify and resolve potential conflicts of interest. At his hearing, he answered questions for more than five hours and provided 147 pages of responses to written questions. We’ve examined every detail of his life, and he’s been subjected to relentless attack on his character the whole time.
"What we’ve learned from this committee process is what we knew from his resume. Mr. Patel has spent his whole career fighting for righteous causes."
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Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, claimed that Patel was already aiming to fire some FBI officials.
"My Republican Committee colleagues have chosen to ignore the myriad red flags about Mr. Patel, especially his recurring instinct to threaten retribution—political retribution—against his and President Trump’s perceived enemies. This is a dangerous characteristic for a person who wants to lead the nation’s most powerful domestic investigative agency, the FBI,” he said.
Patel's nomination goes to the full Senate where he needs 50 votes.
