The Senate voted to confirm Patel, a veteran of Trump’s first administration who drafted the ‘Nunes memo’ on the Crossfire Hurricane probe.
WASHINGTON—The Senate on Feb. 20 confirmed Kash Patel as director of the FBI.
Senators voted 51 to 49 to confirm Patel, who gained prominence for exposing alleged FBI and Justice Department malfeasance during the Crossfire Hurricane probe into the Trump campaign. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) crossed the aisle to join Democrats in voting against Patel’s nomination.
Patel will lead an agency that President Donald Trump and some Republicans have accused of being weaponized for political purposes.
“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 during a Jan. 30 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.
During the hearing, Patel condemned the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and denied having an “enemies list”—an allegation stemming from a list of names at the end of Patel’s book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.”
In an appendix to the book, Patel described the individuals named as “members of the executive branch deep state.”
In the same hearing, Patel pledged to aid Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in identifying those implicated in the child sex trafficking activities of Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and child sex offender.
“Child sex trafficking has no place in the United States of America, and I will do everything if confirmed as FBI director to make sure the American public knows the full weight of what happened in the past,” he said.
The top Republican and Democrat on the key Senate Judiciary Committee, which advanced Patel’s nomination in a 12–10 vote along party lines, are sharply divided over the former Trump administration official, who has a law degree from Pace University and an international law certificate from University College London.
After serving as senior counsel for the House Intelligence Committee, where he worked closely with then-Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a probe of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Patel oversaw a Counterterrorism Directorate on the first Trump administration’s National Security Council. He later served as senior adviser to the acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, and as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
