Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, pushed back in his confirmation hearing after he was grilled on the president’s pardoning of Jan. 6 rioters.
“So do you think that America is safer because the 1,600 people have been given an opportunity to come out of serving their sentences and live in our communities again?” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Patel during Thursday’s hearing, pressing him on Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police officers having their sentences commuted earlier this month.
Patel responded with a reference to Biden’s decision in the final hours of his presidency to free Leonard Peltier, a far-left activist convicted in the 1975 murders of two FBI special agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, who were gunned down in a shootout in South Dakota.
“I have always advocated for imprisoning those that cause harm to our law enforcement and civilian communities. I also believe America is not safer because President Biden’s commutation of a man who murdered two FBI agents. Agent Coler and Williams’ family deserve better than to have the man that point-blank range fired a shotgun into their heads and murdered them, released from prison. So it goes both ways.”
Durbin responded by downplaying the comparison between Peltier and the Jan. 6 rioters.
“Leonard Peltier was in prison for 45 years,” Durbin responded. “He’s 80 years old, and he was sentenced to home confinement. So he’s not free. As you might have just suggested. He killed two FBI agents. That he did, and he went to prison for it and should have. My question to you, though, is, do you think America’s safer because President Trump issued these pardons to 1,600 of these criminal defendants, many of whom violently assaulted our police in the Capitol?”
Patel responded, “Senator, America will be safe when we don’t have 200,000 drug overdoses in two years. America will be safe when we don’t have 50 homicides a day.”
Conservatives and supporters of Patel on social media praised Patel for his response.
“Brutal reality check,” political commentator and Confirm 47 executive director Camryn Kinsey posted on X.
In his opening remarks, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said, “Public trust in the FBI is low.”
“Only 41% of the American public thinks the FBI is doing a good job. This is the lowest rating in a century,” he continued.
Grassley touted Patel’s experience as a public defender and at the Justice Department, as well as his involvement in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017 to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, staunchly defended his record and pushed back on questions about his fitness to lead the bureau during a sometimes fraught confirmation hearing Thursday morning.
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patel portrayed himself as a loyal ally to law enforcement, touting his years of experience as an assistant public defender, federal prosecutor and congressional staffer.
Patel also notably split with Trump, who granted blanket pardons to defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Those defendants included people convicted of violence against police, and Patel said he did not agree with commuting “any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.”
Republicans have sought to provide Patel friendly terrain at the hearing, with committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) launching multiple defenses of the nominee. Democrats, in turn, have asked about Patel’s history of incendiary rhetoric. Patel has pushed back at some of their characterizations, including disputing that a list of officials in his book was “an enemies list.”
Two other senior Trump nominees are also on Capitol Hill today for confirmation hearings: Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
