Newsman: The US Senate has confirms Kash Patel as new director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Kash Patel, a longtime loyalist to President Donald Trump, was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday. The Senate voted 51 to 49 to confirm Patel with all Senate Democrats opposing Patel.
Kash Patel was opposed by Republican senators from Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins joining with Democrats. But he won support from every other Republican, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, who had opposed some of Trump’s other nominees.
Kash Patel previously worked on Capitol Hill and in the first Trump administration, after working as a federal prosecutor in Washington and a federal public defender in Florida. He was considered to take over the FBI during the first Trump administration, but then-Attorney General Bill Barr, among others, vehemently opposed the plan, saying that Patel was unqualified.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Patel said there will be “no politicization” at the FBI and “no retributive actions” and accused Democrats of cherry-picking excerpts of old comments. “Snippets of information are often misleading,” Patel said at one point.
“I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards,” Patel said. “There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken … should I be confirmed as the FBI director.”
The role of FBI director is supposed to be a 10-year term to insulate the position from politics. After winning back the White House, Trump made clear that he wanted then-FBI chief Chris Wray out, leading Wray to resign and paving the way for Patel to be confirmed.
