President-elect Trump's selection of Kash Patel as FBI director has set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill. Several Senate Republicans have already come out in support of Patel, including Ted Cruz (TX) and Bill Hagerty (TN), but other Republicans are on the fence, The Hill reports. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a moderate and member of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the FBI, said she would have to study Patel’s record. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said his staff is “digging into some of the work that he did in various roles of the Trump administration, what he’s done after that.” Incoming Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said Patel would get a rigorous vetting in the Senate. Senate Republicans will control 53 seats next year and can’t afford more than three defections from within their conference on any nominee they try to confirm.
A sensitive question for Republicans is whether to insist on an FBI background check for the person who could possibly lead the nation’s premier law enforcement agency over the next decade. Thune hopes the Trump transition team will resolve its impasse with the Department of Justice over granting the FBI authority to conduct background checks of the nominees. Several Republican senators pushed back on Patel’s call to shutter the FBI’s headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., which he argues would combat what he views as the politicization of the agency. “I haven’t seen that suggestion, but I doubt that happens,” Thune said. Patel has crafted a list of figures he calls “government gangsters” who he says “must be held accountable and exposed in 2024.” The list includes current FBI head Christopher Wray as well as Attorney General Merrick Garland. He has separately said he is “going to come after the people in the media,” floating prosecutions of journalists. Former Trump Attorney General William Barr revealed in his memoir that he strongly opposed Trump’s inclination to appoint Patel as deputy FBI director during his first term, telling then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows it would only happen “over my dead body.” Current Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) said of Patel, “The question is whether he is unbiased. He has said things about weaponization of law enforcement and reform in the FBI, which leads some to believe — I hope it’s not true — that he will take the same type of revenge that he’s accusing this [Biden] administration of."
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