FBI Director Kash Patel returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee expected to feature contentious exchanges with Democrats skeptical of his leadership.
The Republican-led panel is likely to try to keep the focus on Patel’s efforts to combat violent crime, counter drug trafficking and pursue the Trump administration’s agenda from his perch at the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.
But Democrats will almost certainly seize on the tumult inside the FBI over the last year, including sweeping firings of agents who participated in investigations into President Donald Trumpefforts by the bureau to investigate Trump’s perceived political adversaries and Patel’s travel schedule that has blended private leisure with professional responsibilities.
“Mr. Patel is the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in our nation’s history,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the panel’s top Democrat, said in his opening statement at the hearing. He accused Patel of wielding the bureau’s law enforcement powers to seek retribution against Trump’s political opponents and pursue the president’s grievances, including his false claims that the 2020 election he lost was stolen.
Patel has made multiple appearances before Congress while serving as director, including to testify about the FBI’s budget, but this will be his first time since last September before the Senate committee that has principal oversight jurisdiction over the bureau.
That hearing featured feisty and personal exchanges with Democrats, with Patel at one point shouting over Sen. Adam Schiff of California as he called him an “utter disgrace” and a “coward.”
“You can make an internet troll the FBI director, but he will always be an internet troll,” Schiff shot back.
Tuesday’s hearing is expected to be no less contentious given Democrats’ fierce criticism of his leadership and conduct. Durbin called for Patel to be replaced as director in April following an article by The Atlantic magazine that raised allegations of excessive drinking.
Patel later filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit, calling the article false and a “malicious hit piece.” The Atlantic said it stood by its reporting and would vigorously defend against the “meritless lawsuit.”
