Several Republican senators said in media interviews this week that they are open to Kash Patel heading the FBI, after President-elect Donald Trump nominated Patel for the role.
Trump’s nomination of Patel, a former Pentagon official in his first administration, was made over the weekend. The role would require Senate confirmation with only a few Republican defections if Democrats are unified in their opposition to Patel.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had been against Trump’s choice to name former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as attorney general before he withdrew, suggested she would need time to review his profile.
“I don’t know Kash Patel,” Collins told reporters. “I had heard his name, but I don’t know his background, and I’m going to have to do a lot of work before reaching a decision on him. In general, I’ve found it’s important to review the background check, the committee work, and the public hearing.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) told reporters this week, “I do think he will be able to get confirmed, absolutely.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that “Kash Patel would be perfect to clean house over there.”
“You look at his background, he has a serious professional background,” Cruz said of Patel. “He was a prosecutor. He was a public defender. He was a senior intelligence staffer on Capitol Hill. He was a senior intelligence staffer in the White House. He was the chief of staff of the Department of Defense. He was the deputy director of national intelligence.”
Going a step further, Cruz said he believes that Patel “is going to be confirmed by the Senate” to lead the federal law enforcement bureau.
However, it appears Patel will receive very little—or no—Democratic support in the upper congressional chamber.
“He has said things about weaponization of law enforcement and reform in the FBI, which leads some to believe—I hope it’s not true—that he will take the same type of revenge politically that he’s accusing this administration of,” Senate Majority Whip and Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters on Monday.
Durbin also said that Trump’s announcement to tap Patel as FBI director is “unusual” before Wray’s 10-year-long term ends in 2027.
“The reason for a 10-year tenure in the FBI office is to transcend any political identification,” Durbin said, noting that Trump himself appointed Wray as director in 2017.
“I know how I’m going to vote for someone who believes in conspiracy theories, denies the results of the 2020 election, and then says, ‘I’m going to run the FBI by shutting down FBI headquarters.’ Are you kidding me?” he asked.
The FBI has declined to comment on Patel’s nomination or whether Wray might resign. A spokesperson for the bureau told The Epoch Times that Wray is focusing on “the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.”
Patel has also advocated cutting the federal government’s intelligence community, including the CIA and National Security Agency.
The next Congress will be sworn in on Jan. 3, 2025, while Trump is due to be inaugurated on Jan. 20 of next year.
