The Senate has advanced Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director closer to a confirmation vote.
The chamber voted 48 to 45 on Feb. 18 to advance his nomination. A confirmation vote is expected to take place Thursday.
The FBI director position has a term of 10 years.
President Donald Trump, during his first administration, fired FBI Director James Comey against the backdrop of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the president and his associates, which started during Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016.
Patel, who in 2017 was appointed senior counsel on counterterrorism for the House Intelligence Committee, was a critic of Crossfire Hurricane. Under the direction of then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who at that time chaired the committee, Patel led a congressional inquiry into federal law enforcement’s investigation of alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Patel went on to serve in multiple roles in the first Trump administration, including senior adviser to the acting director of national intelligence and chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray, another Trump appointee, resigned before the president took office in his second term. The agency’s acting director is Brian Driscoll.
Patel has faced scrutiny over his nomination for a top spot in the Trump administration, now almost a month old.
Three other nominees who faced heavy scrutiny—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as secretary of health and human services, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense—have been confirmed, with Hegseth’s confirmation requiring a tie-breaking vote in the Senate from Vice President JD Vance.
“There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI should I be confirmed as the FBI director,” Patel said when asked about his past statements on Wray’s wiretapping, which he had said might warrant prosecution.
He also told multiple senators that he does not maintain an “enemies list.” The accusation stems from a list of people in Patel’s book “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy” whom he described as “members of the executive branch deep state.”
Patel also appeared to distance himself from some of Trump’s sweeping pardons of individuals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
“I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement,” Patel said.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a critic of the Jan. 6 defendants, commended Patel, saying his private conversations with the nominee led him to believe “that if [Patel] had been consulted on that, we’d have probably had a little bit different structure for the pardons.”
Patel also pledged to investigate child trafficking, including activity associated with deceased financier and sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.
