Sen. Dick Durban Expresses Concerns About Kash Patel Ahead of His Confirmation Hearing as FBI Head

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “has neither the experience, the temperament, nor the judgment to lead the FBI,” according to Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a speech on the Senate floor yesterday (Jan. 22,) Durbin said that as the FBI “plays a critical role in keeping Americans safe from terrorism, violent crime, and other threats,” the person leading it “should be someone who is nonpartisan, solid, reliable, with demonstrated skill in law enforcement.” 

After meeting with Kash Patel yesterday, I believe he has neither the experience, the temperament, nor the judgment to lead the FBI. I’m on the Senate floor outlining why. WATCH: https://t.co/ivjJ8Ut0iH

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) January 22, 2025

His warning comes before Patel’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee which is scheduled to be held on Jan. 29. It is also an indication that Patel’s nomination could run into hurdles because of promise to limit the FBI, and retaliate against the president-elect’s “enemies.”

Durbin expressed his concern’s after meeting Patel on Jan. 21. He has “grave concerns about his fitness” for Patel’s role as head of the FBI, Durbin said. “Mr. Patel has neither the experience, the temperament, nor the judgment to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said. He described the Indian American as “a staunch political loyalist who has repeatedly peddled false conspiracy theories and threatened to retaliate against those who have slighted him personally and politically.”

Earlier this month, Durbin sent letters to the Department of Defense (DOD), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting they produce all relevant materials related to Patel’s alleged misconduct with respect to those agencies. 

Several senators have similar issues with Patel’s nomination. Among them is Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) who also met the nominee on Jan. 21. He is unsure about Patel’s “ability to put past grievances aside and focus the FBI on its core mission of keeping Americans safe.” Coons said he excepts “to gain greater clarity from him on his most extreme positions and previous actions” during the confirmation hearings. 

Patel has been making headlines for his views on the FBI and Trump’s second term as president. Speaking to podcaster Shawn Ryan, he said he’d “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one… and reopen it as a Deep State museum.” He would even “send the 7,000 employees in the building ‘across America’ to go be cops instead of having them in D.C.” 

Kash Patel Says It’s Time to Release the JFK & 9/11 Files: ‘I’ve Seen It All’ pic.twitter.com/rChAEB7Hb7

— Barron Trump 🇺🇸 NEWS (@BarronTNews) January 22, 2025

He has also broadly vowed to retaliate against Trump’s “enemies” during a second stint in the White House. Steve Bannon on his “War Room” podcast said that he wanted to go after perceived enemies “not just in government but in the media.” They are going “to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said, referring to the 2020 election. “We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. … We’re putting you all on notice.” 

WATCH 🚨 FBI Director Kash Patel: “I’m standing here because of the American Dream, I AM NOT standing here because the color of my skin” 🇺🇸

ABSOLUTE MIC DROP 🫳 🎤 pic.twitter.com/y3BxLHkBUz

— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) January 20, 2025

Additionally, Patel laid out his vision for retribution against the FBI and Justice Department” in a book, “Government Gangsters,” in which he called for “clearing out the top ranks of the bureau, which he called a threat to the people,” according to The New York Times. He also wrote a children’s book, “The Plot Against the King,” in which he reveals “the major players and tactics within the permanent government bureaucracy, which has spent decades stripping power away from the American people and their elected leaders,” according to its synopsis. 

In an an Aug. 26 article in The Atlantic, Elaina Plott Calabro described Patel as “the man who will do anything for Trump.” He rose from an obscure Hill staffer to become one of the most powerful players in the national security apparatus, having served in various high-ranking staff roles in the defense and intelligence communities. He continued to support Trump even after he left the White House. During Trump’s criminal trial in New York, Patel was part of a small group of supporters that included Republican lawmakers and Trump family members and accompanied him into court. He addressed reporters outside the courthouse, “arguing Trump was the victim of an unconstitutional circus,” the Associated Press reported at the time. 

Patel played “a very large role” in Devin Nunes’ attempt to undermine the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He  flew to England in the summer of 2108, where he tried unsuccessfully to meet with Christopher Steele, the author of the Steele dossier that purported to detail links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Patel was a primary author of a 2018 memo, released by Nunes over the objections of the FBI, that accused federal investigators of bias against Trump and his team.

During his final months in office, Trump pushed the idea of installing Patel as the deputy director of the CIA. Trump dropped those plans after CIA director Gina Haspel threatened to resign and Attorney General William Barr argued against it.

While a lot of known about Patel’s role in Trump’s first term and his position in the president’s inner circle, The New York Times notes that some key details about his life were discovered through the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee Patel completed earlier this month. They include  “legal work on behalf of a human trafficker, membership in an exclusive Las Vegas club and participation in a diversity-and-inclusion program,” The Times said. But he “downgraded his work as a Justice Department investigator on the 2012 attack in Benghazi after claiming he had been one of those leading the inquiry,” The Times said.

But most importantly, the questionnaire “sheds light” on Patel’s early life. The son of Indian immigrants from Gujarat, Patel grew up on Long Island, where he “worked as a caddy and toiled for years as a local and federal public defender in Florida,” The Times said. There’s also details on Patel’s “legal defense of crack dealers, gun runners and one 2013 case in which he persuaded federal prosecutors to drop charges against a man accused of trafficking 17 people, including three minors, from an unnamed foreign country.”