WASHINGTON — Kash Patel cleared the last procedural vote to be FBI director Thursday morning — with his nomination expected to secure final approval later in the day.
The Senate voted 51-47 to end debate on the Long Island native’s nomination, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) breaking ranks and voting with 46 Democrats to filibuster President Trump’s choice.
Trump has said that Patel, 44, will shake up the bureau and attempt to depoliticize decision-making after a series of controversies involving either alleged or proven bias against Republicans.
“I think Kash is going to do great,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview that aired Tuesday. “I think they have to do great or we have a problem. But when you look at what they did, the raid of Mar-a-Lago — you look at what they did, their reputation is shot.”
Patel emerged unscathed from his confirmation hearing last month as Democratic senators focused much of their time accusing him of being sympathetic to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
At that hearing, Patel pledged to reform rather than unravel the bureau — after some close Trump allies called for the FBI to be disbanded after the August 2022 raid on Trump’s Florida residence.
Patel said he would “make sure we don’t have 100,000 rapes in this country next year, make sure we don’t have 100,000 drug overdoses from Chinese fentanyl and Mexican heroin, and make sure we don’t have 17,000 homicides.”
“Those numbers need to be cut in half immediately,” he said, “and the public will regain trust in the FBI and law enforcement.”
Patel worked for 12 years as a public defender in Florida before serving in the Justice Department as a trial attorney between 2014 and 2017.
He then worked in congressional and executive-branch roles during Trump’s first term, including as chief of staff to the defense secretary and as principal deputy to the director of national intelligence.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray resigned Jan. 19 — one day before Trump became the 47th president — after the commander in chief signaled he would replace him.
Wray presided over investigations of Trump and took heat from congressional Republicans for fibbing about having official business to attend to in order to ditch an oversight hearing for vacation.
The Justice Department this month accused acting bureau leadership of “insubordination” in a review of alleged “weaponization” of law enforcement under former President Joe Biden. Patel is expected to work closely with Attorney General Pam Bondi on that initiative.
Trump has accused the FBI of politicizing its investigations, including a pair of criminal cases lodged against him for allegedly mishandling classified documents and for challenging the 2020 election results.
During the 45th presidency, evidence emerged that key leaders investigating whether Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election were biased against him.
Top counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, who opened the probe, swapped anti-Trump messages with his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, in which they referred to the Republican as an “idiot” and a “loathsome human” and referred to the probe as an “insurance policy” in case he won.
The Biden Justice Department last year agreed to pay Strzok $1.2 million and Page $800,000 to settle lawsuits claiming their privacy was violated by the public release of those messages.
