President-elect Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel to take over as FBI director — effectively firing current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who still has three years left in his 10-year term — has set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill.
Several Senate Republicans have already come out in support of his nomination, such as Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), but other Republicans are on the fence.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a prominent moderate and member of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the FBI, said she would have to pore over Patel’s record.
She said he’s “a nominee I will have to do a lot of work on” when asked about Patel’s more controversial proposals such as shutting down the FBI’s headquarters in Washington and firing its top ranks.
“That’s why it’s so important that we have an FBI background check, a committee review with extensive questions and questionnaires and a public hearing,” Collins said.
Asked about Patel’s nomination, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) 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 Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Patel would get a rigorous vetting in the Senate, as would Trump’s other nominees.
“My job is to make sure that the nominees have a thorough, fair process and ultimately our members are going to decide,” he said.
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 weighing Patel’s nomination 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 said he 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.
“Hopefully at some point they’ll get this background check issue resolved,” he said. “At this point, I’m not sure exactly how it’s gonna be resolved but I think the administration understands there has to be thorough vetting of all these noms. Historically, the best place to get that done has been through the FBI.”
Several Republican senators pushed back on Patel’s call to shutter the FBI’s headquarters in downtown Washington, something 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 of closing the FBI’s massive Washington headquarters.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) dismissed Patel’s vision for moving the FBI out of Washington as unrealistic.
“I don’t think closing down the FBI headquarters, I don’t think that’s a serious prospect. But we’ll see what he says about it,” she said.
Capito said she doesn’t know Patel and will “look forward to meeting him.”
Other Republican senators are getting more vocal about calling for the FBI to review nominees’ records.
“I’d like to see FBI background checks,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters Monday.
Patel has been a staunch Trump ally and serves as another example of the president-elect elevating those who stood by him during the Ukraine probe and his later impeachment.
Patel has crafted a list of figures he calls “government gangsters” whom he says “must be held accountable and exposed in 2024.” The list includes 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.
“We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminal or civilly we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice,” he said.
Patel has also said he would “shut down the FBI Hoover building on Day One and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.”
Former Trump Attorney General Bill 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.”
Barr warned that “someone with no background as an agent would never be able to command the respect necessary to run the day-to-day operations of the bureau” and argued that Patel didn’t have the experience to qualify for the job.
Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Patel needs to come up with a “good answer” if asked about Barr’s view that he was unqualified to serve in the FBI’s highest ranks.
“I think those are all just things that Mr. Patel needs be ready to come up with a good answer when he starts visiting with people on Capitol Hill,” he said.
It wasn’t the only time Patel faced pushback from within the Trump administration. Then-CIA Director Gina Haspel balked when Trump wanted to install Patel as her deputy, threatening to resign at the time.
Patel’s nomination also appears to have unnerved some with regards to Wray’s future.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called Trump’s plan to remove Wray before the end of his 10-year term “unusual.”
“The reason for a 10-year tenure in the FBI office is to transcend any political identification,” Durbin said, noting that Trump himself appointed Wray in 2017.
Durbin voiced fears shared by many Democrats that Patel is a hardcore Trump loyalist who will carry out the president-elect’s agenda of reforming the bureau.
“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,” he said.
Trump lavished praise on Wray when he nominated him to the role after firing his predecessor, James Comey, but he has regularly complained about him in the years since. With his 2017 nomination, Wray would otherwise not leave his post ahead of 2027.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who supported Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) over Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, said that Trump has a right to pick his own team, but he also defended Wray’s record.
“I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
“When we meet with him behind closed doors, I’ve had no objections to the way that he’s handled himself, and so I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now,” the GOP senator added about Wray.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) declined to answer reporters’ questions Monday about whether Wray should be allowed to finish out his term or whether Patel is an appropriate choice to head the nation’s premier law enforcement agency.
For their part, the FBI declined to comment on Patel’s nomination, saying “Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.”
The FBI Agents Association likewise declined to comment on Patel but in a statement said “strong leadership is critical to maintaining the integrity and mission of the FBI” and that agents’ dedication “does not waver when there are changes in a presidential administration or if the leadership in the Bureau changes.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who would handle Patel’s nomination as incoming chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Sunday signaled his support for replacing Wray immediately, but he has yet to be sold on Patel as the best candidate for the job.
“Chris Wray has failed at fundamental duties of FBI Dir He’s showed disdain for cong oversight & hasn’t lived up to his promises It’s time 2 chart a new course 4 TRANSPARENCY +ACCOUNTABILITY at FBI,” Grassley posted on the social platform X.
But he also cautioned that “Kash Patel must prove to Congress he will reform & restore public trust in [the] FBI.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who criticized Trump’s choice of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to head the Justice Department as not serious, declined to comment about Patel on Monday evening.
“I’m not going to comment about any of these nominees,” she said, citing her lack of sleep because of an overnight flight. “When one has not slept, it’s really not wise to speak.”
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