Dems successfully delay confirmation vote for one of Trump’s most controversial picks

06 February

President Donald Trump will have to wait at least another week before one of his most high-profile nominations will get their first confirmation vote.

That's according to the Daily Beast, which reported that Senate Democrats have pushed back the initial confirmation vote for Kash Patel – who Trump nominated to be FBI director — until at least next week. Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said there are still significant concerns among his side of the aisle about Patel's embrace of far-right conspiracy theories and those who participated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

"We have an individual in Kash Patel who has published a book, which, in detail, describes his view of politics in America," Durbin said during a Thursday press conference. "It is a book that is filled with grievances, filled with conspiracy theories, and filled with information of how he sided with the January 6th rioters against the police in this very Capitol complex."

Democrats have expressed alarm about Patel's repeated references to the QAnon conspiracy theory, which baselessly asserts that Trump is secretly battling a cabal of sexual predators who have supposedly infiltrated the federal government. WIRED reported that Patel even signed some of his pro-Trump children's books with a popular QAnon catchphrase.

Committee members have also pressed Patel on his alleged role in producing a song by the so-called "J6 Prison Choir," in which January 6 defendants held in the Washington D.C. jail sang a revamped version of the national anthem. Durbin wrote that 17 of those singers "were accused of or already convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers." The Illinois Democrat also pointed out that even though Patel denied spreading a debunked conspiracy theory about FBI agents supposedly planning the violence on January 6, he made the accusation on an episode of his podcast.

“When we asked him about it in the committee, he couldn’t remember any part of it, didn’t know who the singers were, wasn’t sure what I was talking about,” Durbin said on Thursday. “That kind of evasion betrays the fact that he sided with the prisoners when he should have sided with the police.”

While Patel likely has the votes to make it out of the Judiciary Committee for consideration by the full Senate, it remains unknown whether enough Republicans will oppose his nomination. Currently, Patel can afford three defections from Senate Republicans and still be confirmed with a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President JD Vance.

Click here to read the Beast's full reort (subscription required).

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