Republicans Confirm MAGA Conspiracy Theorist as FBI Director

Senate Republicans have confirmed Kash Patel — a MAGA conspiracy theorist sympathetic to QAnon who has signaled a thirst for retribution against Donald Trump’s political enemies — as the new FBI Director.

Patel was confirmed in a 51-49 vote Thursday afternoon, with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining every Senate Democrat in voting against his confirmation. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who was the only Republican senator to vote against Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy and who joined Collins and Murkowski in voting against Pete Hegseth — voted to confirm Patel.

Collins announced her opposition in a statement earlier on Thursday, writing that the FBI needs a director who is “decidedly apolitical” and that Patel’s “recent political profile undermines his ability to serve.” Murkowski released a statement shortly after she voted against the nomination. “My reservations with Mr. Patel stem from his own prior political activities and how they may influence his leadership,” she wrote. “The FBI must be trusted as the federal agency that roots out crime and corruption, not focused on settling political scores.”

Trump followed his election win last November with a troubling slate of nominations to fill high-level government positions that many believed the Senate would balk at confirming. There was so much concern that Trump and his allies started pushing for the Senate to forgo its constitutional role of “advice and consent” on presidential nominations and let him install his picks through recess appointments.

It wasn’t necessary, of course, because Senate Republicans were always going to cave and confirm Trump’s unqualified nominees — and cave they did. Hegseth is now Defense Secretary, Gabbard is now the Director of National Intelligence, and RFK Jr. is now in charge of the nation’s health systems. Hegseth, Gabbard, and Kenney, along with Patel, are the highest-profile nominees, but Senate Republicans — with help from Democrats — have obliged Trump on several other problematic picks, from former reality TV star Sean Duffy as Transportation Secretary, to fossil-fuel industry ally Lee Zeldin as the new leader of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Patel’s confirmation on Thursday completes Trump’s move to install MAGA loyalists in the highest ranks of the Justice Department, which is now poised to carry out his revenge fantasies. Pam Bondi, one of Trump’s impeachment lawyers, is the new Attorney General, and Trump signed an executive order earlier this week instructing independent agencies to adhere to his and her interpretation of the law — not that of the court system. Trump’s Justice Department is also working to have corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams dropped so Adams can help the administration remove migrants from the city. The move has led to multiple federal prosecutors to resign.

There’s no telling what Patel could do as FBI Director. He has said in the past that he’d shut down the agency’s headquarters on his first day on the job and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.” In his book Government Gangsters, which he later turned into a documentary, he published a list of officials and lawmakers he believes are “corrupt” and a “dangerous threat to democracy.” Patel denied during his confirmation hearing that the list was an “enemies list” of figures to exact retribution against, but he has said in the past that a new Trump administration would pursue a wide range of targets.

“We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media,” he told Steve Bannon in 2023. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Patel — who served a controversial stint on the National Security Council during Trump’s first administration — is also well known for promoting conspiracy theories. He has said repeatedly that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, and promoted the false idea that the FBI helped orchestrate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He has called Jan. 6 rioters “political prisoners.” Patel has also defended QAnon, the conspiracy theory holding that the nation is run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. “Q has been right about so many things,” he said in a 2022 interview.

Patel has also had a rich slate of business dealings with foreign entities, and has financial connections in Qatar, China, and other nations that some worry could conflict with his duties as FBI Director.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke in opposition of Patel’s nomination outside FBI headquarters on Thursday. “My Senate Republican colleagues are willfully ignoring myriad red flags about Mr. Patel, especially his recurring instinct to threaten retribution against his perceived enemies,” he said. Durbin said earlier this month that Patel had been personally directing the Trump administration’s purge of the FBI while his confirmation was still pending.

“This is an extremely dangerous flaw for someone who seeks to lead the nation’s most powerful domestic investigative agency for the next 10 years,” he continued on Thursday.

Durbin’s address — as with most everything Democrats have said in an effort to warn against Trump’s authoritarian takeover of the nation — fell on deaf ears.