Kash Patel to meet senators by confirmation hearing: FBI -nominated live updates

On By Littum

To say that Kash Patel admires President Trump would be an understatement – and Mr. Patel has rarely been accused of understatement.

His steep, rapid ascension from unknown Republican Congress Assistant to a nominee of the FBI Director of less than a decade owes much, if not all, to Mr. Patel’s relationship with President Security and Defense Posts in Mr. Trump’s first period.

It was the unreasonable fealty he exhibited under Mr. Trump’s turbulent four years out of the office, which seems to have raised Mr. Patel, 44, from a supportive player to a leading role (though Mr. Trump recently asked he did not fit his own central castle of an FBI director).

By nominating Mr. Patel called Mr. Trump him a “brilliant lawyer” and an “America First Fighter.”

This is how Mr. Patel Mr. Trump at a conservative political conference last year: “We are blessed by God to make Donald Trump be our Juggernaut for justice, to be our leader, to be our continued warrior in the arena.”

Mr. Patel worked the exterior game to prove himself to Mr. Trump. He played over 1,000 media performance (and participated in dozens of personal events), where he hammered Mr. Trump’s opponents; wrote a now notorious book in which he appointed 60 perceived enemies for unspecified retaliation; Published a children’s series with three volumes, portraying Mr. Trump like a crowned monarch; And served as a high volume surrogate on the campaign in 2024.

Mr. Patel, a native from Long Island, also worked the interior game. He offered the National Security Council to Mr. Trump; stood by him in the gloomy days after the FBI search of the president’s Florida property, Mar-A-Lago, summer of 2022; and maximized face time with Mr. Trump and his Hovmen in West Palm Beach during the transitional period.

But Mr. Trump’s attitude towards subordinates, even those who are as enthusiastic supportive as Mr. Patel, has a tendency to be a little difficult. Mr. Trump chose Mr. Patel, after the only other serious candidate to lead the agency, Missouri’s legal lawyer, Andrew Bailey, could not impress during interviews, according to people who were familiar with the situation.

He has occasionally expressed doubts about Mr. Patel’s gravitas, like many other Republicans – even though they have refrained from saying so publicly for fear of sustaining Mr. Trump’s anger.

Mr. Patel has told Republican Senators that he will remain independent, true to the law and the constitution and reform -focused if they back him back. So far it seems to have paid off, even though he is going a thin red line: People close to the nominee thinks he just hardly has enough votes in the Senate to secure his confirmation, provided he heard to the Legal Committee Thursday not go off the rails.

Maybe it can. Democrats kept their fire when Pam Bondi, Mr. Trump’s election to the lawyer, showed up for the committee so they could unload on Mr. Patel that they have thrown like an inexperienced, Hyperpartisan Trump -Sycophant.

“He has neither the experience, the verdict nor the temperament to lead this critical agency,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the ranking Democrat of the committee, in a statement of before Mr. Patels Confirmation Hearing.

“He has promised his loyalty to President Trump and promised to arm the FBI on behalf of President Trump,” Mr. Durbin.