Patel blazed through the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 12-10 party-line vote.
“So glad that @Kash_Patel has advanced out of the Judiciary Committee,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said after the vote. “He will now advance to the Senate floor, where we should confirm him as soon as our rules will allow.”
“I just voted to advance @Kash_Patel’s nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor and look forward to voting to confirm him to be our next FBI Director,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said.
“Today, my colleagues and I on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance @Kash_Patel to be our next FBI Director,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said, extending her congratulations.
RELATED — Kash Patel Confirmation Hearing
There were contentious moments with Democrats during Patel’s confirmation hearing, which at one point featured Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN) melting down during her line of questioning as Patel blasted her for offering nothing more than “false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations.”
Klobuchar questioned the widespread belief that the FBI is corrupt, teeing it up by boasting of recruitment numbers:
You wrote that the FBI has become so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to the people unless drastic measures are taken. Do you know that under Chris Wray’s leadership — he took over at a very difficult time, we all know that, appointed by President Trump — that the during his tenure, the applications to the FBI has, in fact, tripled.
“Do you think people would be applying to that agency like in those numbers, if they thought it was so corrupt?” she asked.
“The American public’s trust in it is 40 percent,” Patel responded. “That’s an all-time low.”
“Did you say that the FBI headquarters should be shut down and reopened as a museum of the Deep State?” Klobuchar asked during the tense Q&A.
“If the best attacks on me are going to be false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations, the only thing this body is doing is defeating the credibility of the men and women at the FBI,” Patel said.
“I stood with them here in this country, in every theater of war we have. I was on the ground in service of this nation, and any accusations leveled against me — that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution — are grotesquely unfair,” he continued.
“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,” he added. “Let’s ask them.”
Patel’s passage through committee comes as Trump allies remain confident that President Trump will have his full Cabinet, “no matter how long this takes.”
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