Senate Democrats Block Kash Patel’s FBI Nomination—For Now

Senate Democrats on Thursday threw a wrench in the confirmation process for Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s choice to head the FBI.

A scheduled Senate Judiciary Committee meeting to advance Patel’s nomination was delayed after Democrats on the panel objected. Democrats even came up with a logo they began disseminating on social media: Block Kash Patel.

“We have an individual in Kash Patel who has published a book, which, in detail, describes his view of politics in America. 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,” Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the judiciary panel, said.

The Democrats were able to force a one-week delay on a committee vote to usher in Patel’s nomination to the Senate floor for a full vote. But it appeared unlikely to dissuade Republicans, the vast majority of whom are beholden to Trump.

The move came as lawyers for a group of FBI agents sought to block Trump’s Justice Department from releasing the names of agents who were assigned to investigate the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol.

Durbin and others cited Patel’s past embrace of the QAnon conspiracy cult, his threats to retaliate against perceived enemies of Trump, and his hand in producing the so-called J6 Prison Choir’s track “Justice for All,” a collaboration between the president and his supporters who were convicted and imprisoned for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The song was played at Trump rallies.

The song was the subject of questioning by Democrats last week when Patel appeared before the Judiciary Committee.

“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 Thursday after Democrats shut down the panel’s vote. “That kind of evasion betrays the fact that he sided with the prisoners when he should have sided with the police.”

The delay comes as Democrats grow increasingly alarmed by Trump and Elon Musk’s move to swiftly dismantle the entire federal government, shuttering agencies, threatening to fire FBI agents and other government workers, and freezing funding to states and nonprofits.

Durbin said Trump and Patel want the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol to become a “whitewashed event in history, as opposed to the terrible embarrassment and disgrace that it was that day.”

Trump’s officials at the Justice Department have directed acting U.S. Attorney Edward Martin, D.C.’s top prosecutor, to fire federal prosecutors who were assigned to investigate Jan. 6 cases and put FBI agents involved in the J6 investigation under review.

“And so they’re going through the personnel of those two departments, Department of Justice and the FBI, and asking which individuals were involved in the January 6th case, as well as other prosecutions that might have involved the president,” Durbin said. “Sadly, we think that this is a portent of what’s to come where these people will be punished or even dismissed because of their involvement. That is an outrage.”