kash patel

'I am not afraid of you!' Senator takes on Trump’s FBI director in explosive exchange

Sen. Corey Booker (D-N.J.) on Tuesday slammed FBI Director Kash Patel’s attempt to silence him while Booker was blasting Patel’s hypocrisy.

Patel was testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Booker took that opportunity rake Patel’s mistakes and predict that the director would not survive to another hearing because of his mistakes.

“But here's the thing, Mr. Patel: I think you're not going to be around long. I think this might be your last oversight hearing, because as much as you supplicate yourself to the will of Donald Trump … Donald Trump has shown us in his first term — and in this term — he is not loyal to people like you. He will cut you loose,” Booker said. “This may be the last time I have a hearing with you, because I don't think you're long for your job.”

READ MORE: 'Increasingly senile wackjob': Expert says Trump too broken to destroy democracy on his own

Patel called Booker’s statement a “rant of false information,” which “does not bring this country together.”

Booker exploded at Patel’s accusation, citing Patel’s long history making divisive statements as FBI director.

“My god! My god!” Booker shouted, as Patel insisted: “It’s my time, not yours.”

“I follow you on your social media posts, which tear this country apart!” Booker said.

“It’s my time to address your falsehoods,” Patel inserted.

READ MORE: 'Something is wrong': MAGA pundits say Trump is 'lying to us' about Charlie Kirk shooting

“You can try all you want to take responsibility for what you’ve said," Booker shot back. "You are mocking this committee.”

“Your time is over,” Patel repeated.

“You can't lecture me. You don’t tell me my time is over," Booker replied. "The people of New Jersey tell me what my time is. … I am not afraid of you.”

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'Garbage reporting': Trump FBI official slams Fox News over report that he may be fired

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has pushed back hard against reports that he and Director Kash Patel are on the way out of the bureau, calling Fox News’s coverage “garbage reporting.”

A recent Fox News story claimed that 10 anonymous federal sources told reporter Jacqui Heinrich that Patel’s position is under threat, partly because President Donald Trump is unhappy with how the FBI handled the manhunt for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin. Heinrich added that Bongino's days are "likely more numbered" than Patel's due to his clashing with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Heinrich said “knives are out” for Patel.

READ MORE: 'He's not doing well': Psychologists say Trump showing telltale signs of 'early dementia'

The Daily Beast highlighted Bongino's comments during an appearance on "The Megyn Kelly Show" where he challenged the claim. He asked: “Where are the knives?”

He added: “Who’s holding the knives? The knives are out?”

He listed what he described as recent successes under his and Patel’s leadership. He argued that, if Trump had concerns, he would communicate them directly. He said:

“I don’t mean to get personal, but you know the president — like, do you think he’s the type to not call you?”

READ MORE: 'You will live in exile': Vance and Stephen Miller threaten the left in call for 'unity'

“So I’m a little skeptical of garbage reporting about unnamed sources … who are saying, oh my gosh, the knives are out. When everybody on the record is saying, ‘What are you talking about? Everything’s going great.’”

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung issued a statement to the media on Sunday defending Patel’s work.

“Director Patel and his team worked night and day to find this murderer and bring him to justice. Anyone who doubts his resolve and dedication—especially when Charlie was such a close friend to him—simply is using this extremely sad moment in a disgusting act of political gamesmanship. The focus was on catching this killer, and he will face the full wrath of the justice system.”

Patel drew criticism for prematurely announcing a suspect was in custody in the Kirk case, then later saying that information was incorrect.

READ MORE: 'Tremendous pressure': GOP senator predicts party will fold over rural hospital closures

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'Alarming quest for fealty': FBI agents subjected to lie detector tests over their loyalty

Since Kash Patel and Dan Bongino assumed leadership roles atop the FBI, the bureau has adopted a noticeably more forceful approach with polygraph tests, the New York Times reported Thursday. Agents and senior staff have been asked pointedly in polygraphs and interviews whether they have “cast aspersions on Mr. Patel himself," per the report.

Two insiders and other sources familiar with the inquiries told The Times that senior employees were asked if they had spoken negatively about Patel.

Although polygraph results are typically inadmissible in court, federal national-security agencies routinely deploy them in internal investigations and security-clearance checks for personnel reviews. This heightened polygraph usage is part of a wider FBI effort to clamp down on leaks.

READ MORE: 'Absolute cringe': Trump admin mocked after attacking CNN report— by confirming it

In one case, dozens of agents were required to take a polygraph to identify who leaked to the media that Patel requested a service weapon — an unusual move for someone without agent status.

The report further noted that former bureau officials characterize the strategy as politically motivated and inappropriate, saying it reflects what they view as Patel’s deep concern over his image. They describe the tests "as an alarming quest for fealty at the F.B.I., where there is little tolerance for dissent."

They warn that criticizing Patel or his deputy, Dan Bongino, “could cost people their job.”

The report indicated that roughly 40% of field office leadership has either retired, been dismissed, or reassigned since the new administration took over.

READ MORE: 'Those people are destroyed': Bill O'Reilly reveals what Trump told him about Epstein

According to the report, Michael Feinberg, a senior agent at the FBI’s Norfolk, Va., field office until spring, was threatened with a polygraph over his friendship with Peter Strzok, a former counterintelligence official dismissed after sending texts criticizing Trump.

Feinberg emphasized that Strzok had a key role in the bureau’s investigation into whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Russia in 2016. He also noted that Strzok features on the so-called enemies list published by Patel in Government Gangsters. per the report.

Writing for the national security blog Lawfare, Feinberg recalled that the Special Agent in Charge, Dominique Evans, told him he would be “asked to submit to a polygraph exam probing the nature of my friendship with Pete.”

He further stated this directive came at the behest of Dan Bongino, highlighting what he described as a broader trend prioritizing ideological alignment over professional merit.

READ MORE: 'Watched every single snore': E. Jean Carroll describes how jury turned on Trump in trial

Feinberg went on to write, “Under Patel and Bongino, subject matter expertise and operational competence are readily sacrificed for ideological purity and the ceaseless politicization of the work force.”

He added that he was “expected to grovel, beg forgiveness and pledge loyalty as part of the FBI's cultural revolution brought about by Patel and Bongino’s accession to the highest echelons of American law enforcement and intelligence."

Faced with these demands, Feinberg chose to resign before taking the polygraph. In an essay titled Goodbye to All That, he warned that his case is not isolated: more agents are being pushed out over perceived political unreliability.

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'Destroyed their credibility': MAGA turns on Trump officials unable to prove conspiracies

Several senior officials in President Donald Trump's administration are now finding themselves in the crosshairs of Trump's MAGA base, who are upset with their inability to follow through on promises to get to the bottom of unproven conspiracy theories.

According to a Sunday report in the New York Times, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino have all experienced MAGA's wrath on multiple occasions since they were confirmed to their positions. Bondi was lambasted for giving far-right, pro-Trump activists binders full of material that was teased as new revelations about the late convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein, only to disappoint them once it was found that there was no new information contained in those binders.

Similarly, Bongino acknowledged that Epstein did indeed take his own life in a prison cell while awaiting trial in 2019 (though a DOJ Office of the Inspector General report issued in 2023 found that there were numerous failures by staff to prevent his death by suicide). This deflated conspiracy theorists who had argued — as Trump himself has insinuated — that Epstein was murdered by someone connected to his client base of rich and powerful people.

READ MORE: Republican rep. warns the GOP is following Trump 'off a cliff' — and he won't go with them

As for Patel, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused him of "gaslighting" the American public for failing to deliver promised results about the Epstein case during a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. Jones asserted that the FBI director was "committing political suicide" by maintaining that Epstein alone was responsible for his own death.

The Times reported that the MAGA faithful have been more vocal in their condemnations of Bondi, Bongino and Patel in response to their handling of the Epstein case. Trump supporter Suzzanne Monk – who has repeatedly bemoaned the treatment of participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — said that Trump's base is divided between "Camp Be Patient" and "Camp Demand Results," and that she is firmly on the side of the latter.

Patel and Bongino have since announced new investigations into three high-profile cases: The discovery of cocaine at the White House in 2023, the leaking of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade and the discovery of pipe bombs left outside of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee buildings on January 6. But former Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson criticized those new investigations as a distraction.

"Dan Bongino & Kash Patel know they destroyed their credibility by claiming that ‘Jeffrey Epstein killed himself’ so now they’re trying to offer up three investigations you don’t care about to misdirect you from the Epstein files you do care about," Robinson wrote. "Sad!"

READ MORE: 'Don't have a violin small enough': Critics mock DOGE staff worried about losing jobs

Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).

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'Deep state traitor': Trump's conspiracists are now at war with their own conspiracies

“The kooks have the power” in the White House now, but they’re failing to satiate their old audience, says Bulwark Senior Reporter Will Sommer.

Over the weekend, Sommer notes FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino appeared on Fox News and asked their MAGA faithful to “stop expecting Hillary Clinton to be arrested for murdering Jeffrey Epstein.”

“They have a right to their opinion, but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who has been in that prison system, who has been in the metropolitan detention center, who’s been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one and that’s what that was,” Patel told Fox News entertainer Maria Bartiromo.

READ MORE: Inside MAGA's real motive for trying to destroy America

“He killed himself,” added Bongino. “You want me to get—I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”

But Bongino is a right-wing podcaster who spent nearly a decade raking the FBI before President Donald Trump appointed him second in command over the agency. Since then, Sommer says Bongino’s been among the most senior officials willing to engage MAGA conspiracists who insist “the world is controlled by a powerful human-trafficking cabal, and that sinister forces within the government conspired to undermine the first Trump administration by concocting the Russia probe.”

Bongino and Patel may claim to be working behind the scenes for answers but Sommer says their results aren’t pleasing their old fans, particularly regarding cases like the theory that Trump’s assassination attempts were attempted kills by members of the Deep State.

“In some of these cases, the ‘there’ you’re looking for is not there,” Bongino said about that.

READ MORE:

“To some extent, Bongino himself is to blame for his predicament,” says Sommer “That it is an article of faith for the right that Trump’s assassination attempts were part of a nefarious plot or that Epstein was murdered—presumably by Democrats—is owed in part to people like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino suggesting as much prior to joining the administration.”

But instead of accepting him on the basis of his MAGA credibility, conspiracists appear to be treating Bongino as a kind of repurposed “deep state traitor” for dismissing “wild theories he used to preach and they still collectively believe in aren’t true.”

“It’s a plight facing the broader administration, and really, the whole country,” Sommer adds.

NOW READ: The one way to stop Trump's off-the-rails rampage

Read the full report at The Bulwark.

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'Looks horrible': Former Trump FBI chief says Kash Patel may have fumbled judge’s arrest

One former top FBI official in President Donald Trump's first administration is now saying current FBI Director Kash Patel could have committed a major error pertaining to the arrest of a judge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Patel announced the FBI's arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan on Friday morning on social media, posting to his official X account that the bureau had "evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week." The tweet was deleted, and later reposted.

"We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest," Patel tweeted. "Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public."

READ MORE: 'Disgusting': Republicans panic after senator promises to impeach Trump after midterms

In a Friday segment on CNN, Andrew McCabe — who was briefly the director of the FBI between James Comey and Christopher Wray — said that Patel briefly deleting the tweet could have been the result of an intervention with cooler heads in proximity to the bureau's director. CNN host Kasie Hunt asked McCabe if the deletion of the tweet suggests something may have happened "behind the scenes" that caused alarm within the higher echelon of the nation's top law enforcement agency.

"FBI directors traditionally do not speak about arrests in this way. They certainly don't gloat or pound their chests over them in the way that he did, here today," McCabe said. "I hope that he pulled the message down because somewhere on the seventh floor, he actually has an advisor with some common sense who he listens to. And that person said to him: 'You know what? You should take that down. It looks horrible.' And it further inserts the FBI into kind of first place on what will be a very volatile and political issue. and that is the last place they need to be."

McCabe went on to say that the federal indictment of Judge Dugan was "strong on its face," and acknowledged that the two felony counts of obstructing a federal proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent arrest were backed up by "numerous witnesses" and "a lot of facts that will support this prosecution." However, he added that the decision to arrest and charge the judge was moreso about "messaging."

"The message here is treating this judge like she just committed some sort of a violent crime — which she didn't — and publicly humiliating her. That is the message to the rest of local judges, local sheriffs, local officials who may feel uncomfortable now being on the on the pointy edge of the government's immigration efforts," McCabe said. "This is a this is an effort at intimidation. There's a clear message being sent by the administration here today. I'm not so sure that it's a good one."

READ MORE: 'Pure unadulterated evil': Trump envoy's Putin meeting ignites outrage

Watch the video of McCabe's comments below, or by clicking this link.


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'Revenge tour': Trump has a plan to 'inflict pain' — and has 'a few targets in mind'

At a campaign rally in 2023, Donald Trump famously told a crowd of supporters, "I am your retribution" — a theme he echoed in many subsequent rallies. And when he gave his 2025 joint address to Congress on Tuesday night, March 4, 2025, Trump prioritized grievance as he angrily railed against former President Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress, and "radical-left lunatics."

The New York Times' Jamelle Bouie, in his March 5 column, describes Trump's second presidency as a "grand tour of retribution" — and that retribution, he warns, is being aimed at political foes as well as the general public.

"Donald Trump rambled, ranted and raved his way through the 2024 presidential campaign," Bouie explains, "but he was clear on one point: When he was elected, he would get revenge. 'I am your retribution,' Trump said to crowds of his supporters throughout the campaign. This was not an abstraction. He had a few targets in mind."

READ MORE: Ex-Treasury official warns Trump’s tariffs will make consumer confidence even worse

The targets Trump named, Bouie notes, included Biden, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., and Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"For once in his public career," Bouie observes, "Trump wasn't lying. As president, he has made it a priority to go after his political enemies. One of his first acts once he was back in office was to remove security protections from former officials facing credible death threats, including his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and his former national security adviser John Bolton — both of whom Trump views as disloyal. Not only did he take away their protection, knowing they were under threat from Iran, but he also publicly discussed that he had removed their security, as if to entice their antagonists."

The Times columnist continues, "Trump fired more than a dozen government inspectors general at various federal agencies — most likely in retaliation for the fact that it was an inspector general who informed Congress about Trump's attempt to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden. Trump has also tried to purge the Justice Department of any lawyers and officials who worked on the January 6 investigation or helped to prosecute the January 6 rioters — nearly all of whom, of course, he pardoned or released."

Trump's "grand tour of retribution," according to Bouie, also includes appointing "supplicant Kash Patel" as FBI director and showing his "deep hostility toward Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky."

READ MORE: DC insider explains why Trump could hit an economic slump — and soon

"Altogether, Trump has done more to actualize his desire for retribution than he has to fulfill his campaign promise to lower the price of groceries or reduce the cost of housing," Bouie observes. "A telling sign, perhaps, of his real priorities in office. This fact of Trump's indifference to most Americans — if not his outright hostility toward them, considering his assault on virtually every government function that helps ordinary people — suggests another dimension to his revenge tour. It is almost as if he wants to inflict pain not just on a specific set of individuals, but on the entire nation."

READ MORE: 'Lies, lies and more lies – but no plan to lower costs': Dems blast Trump's State of the Union

Jamelle Bouie's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

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Trump’s FBI chief ordered 'so many changes employees couldn’t tell if he was serious': WSJ

On his first official staff video conference, FBI Director Kash Patel didn't waste time listing a significant number of major changes he intended to make to the bureau.

That's according to a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal, in which President Donald Trump's new head of the FBI held fast to his promise of shaking up the nation's top law enforcement agency upon taking charge. Patel was said to have immediately ordered changes to the bureau's command structure, making it based by region as opposed to being centralized out of Washington D.C. He also demanded the FBI's fitness requirements for agents to be increased and announced plans to set up a partnership between the FBI and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC (the mixed martial arts league owned by Trump backer Dana White). Several people on the call told the Journal that Patel "rattled off so many changes that employees couldn’t tell if he was serious about all of them."

Wall Street Journal reporters Sadie Gurman and Aruna Viswantha additionally wrote that Patel announced that 1,500 FBI staff would be moved from Washington D.C. to cities with high crime rates like Cleveland, Detroit and Minneapolis. However, one person on the call informed Patel that such a move would cost roughly $100 million and that it spending bureau funds on that project may require an act of Congress.

READ MORE: 'He wants retribution': George Conway says Trump's new FBI pick signals thirst for 'revenge'

"Patel was unmoved," Gurman and Viswantha wrote. "Figure out how to do it anyway, and fast, he told them."

At one point during the meeting, Patel said he intended to make the weekly conference a "monthly" occasion, saying that he "didn't like meetings." He also appeared to take a separate phone call, according to the Journal's sources. And Patel indicated he planned to spend most of his time in Las Vegas, where he lived in 2024, as well as ordering his Washington D.C. office to be redecorated and for for his personal trainer to have clearance to enter the J. Edgar Hoover building to assist Patel with his workouts on site.

In addition to serving as the ninth director of the FBI, Patel has also been named the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms – which is the first time any FBI director has worked a second job. The Trump administration has not explained how it expects Patel to fulfill his duties of overseeing both law enforcement agencies given the strenuous nature of both jobs.

So far, Patel has not ordered any changes to the J. Edgar Hoover building itself, despite saying on a podcast that he intended to shutter it and turn it into a "Museum of the Deep State." And the Journal noted that he apparently reneged on his promise to ensure that the bureau's number two official would be a career FBI agent after Trump named MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino as deputy director earlier this week.

READ MORE: Patel among directors instructing personnel to ignore 'cruel and disrespectful' Musk order

Click here to read the Journal's full report (subscription required).


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'Frightening': GOP slammed after confirming 'the most dangerous of all the Trump nominees'

After 51 Senate Republicans voted to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, various elected officials, legal experts, journalists and political commentators are condemning their "cowardice."

Patel's narrow 51-49 confirmation vote had the support of all but two Senate Republicans — Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — while all Democrats voted no. WIRED's Jake LaHut posted Collins' statement opposing Patel to Bluesky, in which she said his "high profile and aggressive political activity" should disqualify him for a role meant to be apolitical. Prior to the vote, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called Patel "the most dangerous of all the Trump nominees" and said he "shamelessly wants to turn the agency into Trump's loyalty police."

But after the vote, anger at Senate Republicans was palpable on social media — including from other Republicans. Olivia Troye, who was an advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, credited Collins and Murkowski for their no votes but tore into the other 51 Republicans.

READ MORE: 'Radical change': Former FBI official says rank-and-file agents view Patel as a 'hatchet man'

"History will remember the cowardice of so many across the GOP who chose loyalty to Trump over the rule of law & the national security of our country," Troye wrote on Bluesky.

Atlantic contributing writer Norman Ornstein called it "scandalous and frightening" that Patel was confirmed, and ripped Republicans for having "bowed to Dear Leader." Popular YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen highlighted one of Patel's most controversial comments after the confirmation vote, reminding his followers that nearly every member of the Senate Republican Conference voted to confirm an FBI director who once said he planned to "come after the people in the media." Doug Lindner, who is the senior director of judiciary and democracy at the League of Conservation Voters, noted that Patel once posted a video of himself "chainsawing Democrats' heads off."

"Trump hacks are already trying to purge thousands of FBI agents who worked on 1/6 cases," Lindner wrote. "Whistleblowers say Kash Patel was directing those purges even before he was confirmed, and lied under oath about it during his confirmation hearing."

Gizmodo tech reporter Matt Novak grimly observed that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who has publicly opposed several of President Donald Trump's nominees — voted for Patel's confirmation the same day he announced he would not seek another term in 2026, and likened it to a "perfectly timed f--- you to the country." And after YouTuber Keith Edwards called Patel's elevation to FBI director "horrible," he opined that "all of the Republicans voting for him today know" that he intends to "hollow out the agency and go after Trump's enemies."

READ MORE: Trump FBI nominee has a full 'enemies list' – here's who's on it

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'Radical change': Former FBI official says rank-and-file agents see Patel as a 'hatchet man'

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate officially voted to confirm Kash Patel to be the next director of the FBI. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined the Democratic opposition while all other Republicans voted in favor of confirmation.

During a Thursday segment on CNN, Frank Montoya — who was special agent in charge of the Seattle, Washington field office — said that Patel's confirmation is a "radical change" to the bureau that is likely worrying a lot of career FBI agents. Montoya noted that agents who don't concern themselves with politics are now likely to be on edge as they carry out investigations.

"They're not stupid. They have seen what has happened in the in the last month and how their their friends and their colleagues have been targeted. Some have been fired, some have been demoted and reassigned, some have been forced into retirement," Montoya said. "And I'm hearing the numbers are a lot larger than than what are publicly being reported."

READ MORE: Trump FBI nominee has a full 'enemies list' – here's who's on it

Montoya said one particular concern of agents is the fact that thousands of them worked on cases pertaining to defendants charged and convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, who were later pardoned after President Donald Trump began his second term. He added that many of the agents at risk of losing their jobs for working on those cases include agents who combed through the wreckage of the American Airlines jet that crashed in the Potomac River last month.

"These guys and gals have been doing their work without any kind of controversy for years and years. They go out every day and they do this kind of stuff without concerning themselves with whose politics are going to drive today's investigation or the course of this investigation," he said. "Everybody is worried because, you know, in addition to what has already happened, now there's this list out there with 5,000 to 6000 names on it ... so, just a lot of concern about that."

Aside from the career rank-and-file agents, Montoya also worried about the firings of probationary-level agents who he said were likely "biting their nails every single day" given that the Trump administration has singled them out for mass firings.

"It really is a great deal of emotional drain right now," Montoya said. "And then there's this new guy coming in that that everybody is looking at as you know, more of the same ... a hatchet man per se, who is coming in to finish the job that that Emil Bove at the DOJ has already started. So yeah, a lot of concern about that."

READ MORE: FBI official tapped as acting director refusing to approve his mass firings: report

Watch Montoya's segment below, or by clicking this link.


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Group of ex-FBI agents 'accused of misconduct' rally behind FBI nominee Kash Patel: report

A group of former FBI agents called “The Suspendables” has joined forces with President Donald Trump's FBI director nominee Kash Patel as he awaits Senate confirmation, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. Patel has been accused of playing a role in the firing of several top FBI officials, some of whom were “vilified” by “The Suspendables.”

“Perhaps no group is happier” about his nomination “than the coterie of suspended or former agents Patel has connected with in recent years,” write Mark Berman, Jeremy Roebuck, Perry Stein and Clara Ence Morse.

“The Suspendables” consider themselves to be victims of an anti-conservative bent at the FBI, and they argue that they were “punished for political differences and whistleblowing,” the journalists write. Members “have previously been accused of misconduct and suspended.”

READ MORE: Former Trump officials consider loyalist Kash Patel especially 'dangerous': report

The stakes are high for Patel’s possible confirmation. The FBI is facing immense unrest, and Patel has been accused of playing a role in “purges of at least eight top officials while his nomination was pending.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are concerned.

“This is a private citizen with no role in government allegedly [directing] baseless firings of career politicians and then misleading this committee about his actions,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Patel’s nomination. No Democrats on the committee voted in favor of his advancement.

Some of the former FBI officials who were purged had been “vilified” by “The Suspendables” for years. The group applauded the firings via social media posts and podcast appearances.

READ MORE: GOP lawmaker sounds the alarm on coming ‘clash’ between Republicans and Trump

The members of the group deny any wrongdoing, and Patel’s spokeswoman, Erica Knight, said the idea that he was involved in the firings was “secondhand gossip.” Patel, she said, “has been fully transparent with the American people throughout this process and has demonstrated the integrity and leadership needed for this role.”

One member of the group told the Washington Post that the ex-agents have been in contact with Patel since he was nominated. Some even accepted money from his nonprofit, the Kash Foundation.

Patel “basically said, ‘I’ve got a check. I’ve got a foundation. I’d like to help your family out and get you through a month or help you pay some bills,' ex-agent and podcaster Kyle Seraphin said." Patel allegedly sent him $10,000.

According to disciplinary records, Seraphin had his security clearance revoked due to “routine use of derogatory, racist, sexist, and/or homophobic language,” and his unapproved release of “sensitive government information.” He has disputed the accusations.

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