The Senate narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as director of the FBI. File photo
| Photo Credit: AP

The Senate on Thursday narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as director of the FBI, moving to place him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite doubts from Democrats about his qualifications and concerns he will do Donald Trump’s bidding and go after the Republican president’s adversaries.

“I cannot imagine a worse choice,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told colleagues before the 51-49 vote by the GOP-controlled Senate. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the lone Republican holdouts.

A Trump loyalist who has fiercely criticized the agency, Patel will inherit an FBI gripped by turmoil as the Justice Department over the past month has forced out a group of senior bureau officials and made a highly unusual demand for the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Patel has spoken of his desire to implement major changes at the FBI, including a reduced footprint at headquarters in Washington and a renewed emphasis on the bureau’s traditional crime-fighting duties rather than the intelligence-gathering and national security work that has come to define its mandate over the past two decades. But he also echoed Trump’s desire for retribution. Patel raised alarm among Democrats for saying before he was nominated that he would “come after” anti-Trump “conspirators” in the federal government and the media.

Republicans angry over what they see as law enforcement bias against conservatives during the Democratic Biden administration, as well as criminal investigations into Trump, have rallied behind Patel as the right person for the job.

“Mr. Patel wants to make the FBI accountable once again -– get back the reputation that the FBI has had historically for law enforcement,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said before Patel was confirmed. “He wants to hold the FBI accountable to Congress, to the president and, most importantly, to the people they serve — the American taxpayer.”

Democrats complained about Patel’s lack of management experience compared with previous FBI directors and they highlighted incendiary past statements that they said called his judgment into question.

“I am absolutely sure of this one thing: this vote will haunt anyone who votes for him. They will rue the day they did it,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat.

He added: “To my Republican colleagues, think about what you will tell your constituents” and family “about why you became voted for this person who will so completely and utterly disgrace this office and do such grave damage to our nation’s justice system.”

About a half-dozen Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee gathered outside FBI headquarters earlier Thursday in a last-ditch plea to derail his confirmation.

“This is someone we cannot trust,” said Sen. Adam Schiff of California. “This is someone who lacks the character to do this job, someone who lacks the integrity to do this job. We know that, our Republican colleagues know that.”

Patel’s eyebrow-raising remarks on hundreds of podcasts and in other interviews over the past four years include referring to law enforcement officials who investigated Trump as “criminal gangsters,” saying some Jan. 6 rioters were “political prisoners” and proposing to shut down the FBI headquarters and turning it into a museum for the so-called deep state.

At his Senate hearing in January, Patel said Democrats were taking some of his comments out of context or misunderstanding the broader point that he was trying to make. Patel has also denied the idea that a list in book he authored of government officials who he said were part of a “deep state” amounted to an “enemies list,” calling that a “total mischaracterization.”

FBI directors are given 10-year terms as a way to insulate them from political influence and keep them from becoming beholden to a particular president or administration. Patel was selected in November to replace Christopher Wray, who was picked by Trump in 2017 and served for more than seven years but who repeatedly angered the president and was seen by him as insufficiently loyal. He resigned before Trump took office.

Since Wray’s resignation, the FBI has been led by interim leaders, who have clashed with the Justice Department over its demands for details about the agents who investigated the Capitol riot — a move seen as a possible prelude to broader firings. Patel denied having any knowledge of discussions about potential firings, but a letter from Durbin last week that cited information that he said had come from insiders suggested that Patel may have been covertly involved in that process.

Trump has said that he expects some of those agents will be fired.

Patel is a former federal defender and Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutor. He attracted Trump’s attention during the president’s first term when, as a staffer on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, Patel helped write a memo with pointed criticism of the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Patel later joined Trump’s administration, both as a counterterrorism official at the National Security Council and as chief of staff to the defense secretary.

More than 400 DNC members from every state and U.S. territory have gathered in suburban Washington for the election [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Democrats, desperately seeking a new message and messengers to push back against the Trump administration, will elect a new leader Saturday in a low-profile Democratic National Committee election that could have big implications for the party’s future.

More than 400 DNC members from every state and U.S. territory have gathered in suburban Washington for the election, which features a slate of candidates dominated by party insiders. Outgoing Chair Jaime Harrison is not seeking reelection.

Most of the candidates acknowledge that the Democratic brand is badly damaged, but few are promising fundamental changes. Indeed, nearly three months after Donald Trump won the popular vote and gained ground among key Democratic constituencies, there is little agreement on what exactly went wrong.

Facing an emboldened Trump presidency, however, the leading candidates are talking tough.

“As we reel with shock at the horror that Trump is visiting on communities across this country, we need a DNC and a DNC chair who’s ready to bring the intensity, the focus and the fury to fight back,” said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic chairman and a top candidate for DNC chair.

The election comes less than two weeks after Trump’s inauguration as Democratic leaders struggle to confront the sheer volume of executive orders, pardons, personnel changes and controversial relationships taking shape in the new administration. The next DNC chair would serve as a face of the Democratic response, while helping to coordinate political strategy and repair the party’s brand.

Just 31% of voters have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this week that offers a dramatic contrast with Trump’s GOP. Forty-three percent of voters have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party.

The leading candidates for DNC chair, Wisconsin’s Wikler and Minnesota’s Ken Martin, are low-profile state party chairs. They’re promising to refocus the Democratic message on working-class voters, strengthen Democratic infrastructure across the country and improve the party’s anti-Trump rapid response system.

They have promised not to shy away from the party’s dedication to diversity and minority groups, a pillar of the modern-day Democratic Party. But if Martin, 51, or Wikler, 43, is elected, as expected, either would be the first white man to lead the DNC since 2011.

Also in the race: Marianne Williamson, the activist and author; former Maryland governor and Biden administration official Martin O’Malley; and Faiz Shakir, who managed Bernie Sanders’ last presidential campaign.

Shakir has called for sweeping changes within the party, such as more coordination with labor unions and less focus on minority groups sorted by race and gender. The only Muslim seeking the chairmanship, Shakir was alone during a candidate forum this week in opposing the creation of a Muslim caucus at the DNC.

But he has struggled to gain traction.

Shakir declined to raise money for the contest, decorating his modest booth at this week’s gathering with pictures drawn by his young children with crayons. By contrast, Martin and Wikler hosted would-be supporters in large hotel suites adorned with dozens of professionally printed signs and offered T-shirts, sunglasses and food.

Wikler has faced questions about his relationship with Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, the billionaire cofounder of LinkedIn. But he cast his fundraising connections as an asset. Indeed, the DNC chair is expected to raise tens of millions of dollars to help Democrats win elections.

Some Democratic leaders remain concerned about the direction of their party.

“As positive as I am and as hopeful as I am, I’m watching this in real time, thinking to myself, ‘We’re in real trouble because I don’t see a desire to change,’” said Kansas Democratic Chair Jeanna Repass, a candidate for DNC vice chair.