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F.B.I. Director Clashes With Democrats During Hearing
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, butted heads with Democratic senators during a Judiciary Committee hearing, where lawmakers questioned him about his missteps in recent months.
“You can tell me my time is over?” “You may be in charge of the F.B.I. —” “I’m not going anywhere.” “I think this might be your last oversight hearing. Because as much as you supplicate yourself to the will of Donald Trump and not the Constitution of the United States of America, 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.” “That rant of false information does not bring this country together. If you want to work on bringing this country — It’s my time, not yours.” “You can try all you want to not take responsibility for what you have said.” “You had your time.” “Sir, you are making a mockery of this committee.” “Your time is over.” “You’ve gutted the bureau of institutional knowledge and expertise. You’ve fired or pushed out seasoned F.B.I. officials. It makes me think we can’t trust you as a nation. You swear to release the Epstein files, but now you’re withholding the Epstein files.” “On the day of the horrific shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, Director Patel again sparked mass confusion by incorrectly claiming on social media that the shooter was in custody, which he then had to walk back with another social media post. He violated one of the basics of effective law enforcement: At critical stages of an investigation, shut up and let the professionals do their job.” “In my commitment to work with the public to help identify subjects and suspects, I put that information out. And then when we interviewed him, I put out the results of that. And could I have been more careful in my verbiage and included ‘a subject’ instead of ‘subject’? Sure.” “So that was a mistake.” “I don’t see it as a mistake.”
