Kash Patel moved a giant step further to becoming FBI director on Thursday despite being branded by Democratic lawmakers as a conspiracy theorist hellbent on retribution.
One after another, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee listed the targets they believe Patel would investigate like an “unrestrained guided missile” after turning the FBI into a “sycophantic goon squad” when he is rubber-stamped as director by the full Senate.
It made little difference. The senators voted along party lines 12-10 to easily clear the first major Senate hurdle to his confirmation. A full vote on the floor is expected to make his position official.
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Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, cited a so-called “enemies list” in the appendix of Patel’s 2023 book, Government Gangsters. He names more than 50 people as a threat from the “Executive Branch deep state.”
They include obvious targets like former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris as well as lower-level civil servants and Republicans—including former FBI Director Robert Mueller—in addition to Democrats.
Democrat senators noted Patel had also said he would investigate the media and claimed he was already leading a “purge” of the agency he is expected to lead even before he has been voted into the job.
Durbin accused Patel of demanding the names of all the agents involved in the probe into the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, saying that may include as many as 5,000 agents in the bureau’s 38,000 workforce.
He claimed the committee was “inviting a political disaster” with its partisan vote to back Patel, adding that the former federal prosecutor would seek revenge against those with the “misfortune to have crossed his path.”
The Illinois senator also alleged Patel singled out a judicial candidate because of a poem he wrote 30 years ago because of its “Marxist ideology.” He quoted Patel as saying, “We are going to come after people in the media.”
Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse condemned Patel for “all of his wild MAGA behavior” and questioned the nominee’s claim that he did not have an “enemies list.”
Whitehouse highlighted a past quote from Patel that said, “The manhunt starts tomorrow.”
He also claimed that Patel “retweeted a photo of him chainsawing the head off the people on his enemies list.
“These are his own statements. These are Patel’s own words,” he added.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut claimed Patel wanted to head up a “sycophantic goon squad” and warned fellow Democrats on the committee that they risked being included on Patel’s hit list by speaking out against him.
Blumenthal called President Donald Trump’s nominee an “unrestrained guided missile.”
“Kash Patel is certainly, through his vindictiveness, seeking revenge rather than keeping America safe,” he said. “This vote will haunt my Republican colleagues.”
“This is a person who is going to use the FBI for his own purposes,” said Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley was having none of it and complained about the “relentless attacks” on Patel’s character: “Mr Patel has spent his entire career fighting for righteous causes.”
“The FBI has been infected by political bias and weaponized against the American people,” he said.
Grassley claimed Democrats were “throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks.”
Patel was not at the vote.
