Trump Administration Live Updates: Latest news about Kash Patel, Russia-Ukraine and more

The Democrats in the Senate had hoped to slow down his nomination, but it had little success to fluctuate their colleagues about the passage that carefully affect Mr. Trump or his powerful proxies.

This month, the top democrat in the Justice Committee, Mr. Patel, accused a number of forced drains in the office not properly without being confirmed as a guide.

Mr. Patel’s financial disclaimers also raised the eyebrows, but none of these concerns have moved his support considerably and enables him to mainly guide the confirmation process.

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, praised him on the ground and said that he was looking forward to “working with Mr. Patel to restore the integrity of the FBI and to concentrate on his critical mission”.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said that she would not support his nomination, in progress, citing the recent change in the entire Ministry of Justice, including the FBI

“There is a convincing need for an FBI director who is extremely apolitical,” she said in an explanation. “While Mr. Patel had 16 years of committed public service, his time has been shaped by top -class and aggressive political activities in the past four years.”

Senator Richard J. Durbin from Illinois, the leading Democrat in the committee, said that Mr. Patel was full of red flags that the Republicans should persuade him to vote against him.

Mr. Durbin repeated an accusation that Mr. Patel had a role in the Oussters of the high -ranking FBI officers who contested the candidate.

“Lord Patel is already leading the ongoing cleaning,” said the senator. “This has never happened before in the long, long history of the FBI.”

Of particular concern for critics, Mr. Patels were often characterized by a campaign of the revenge on behalf of Mr. Trump and a promise to redesign the agency.

At the hearing of Mr. Patel last month, the democratic senators urged him on fire comments, which he had addressed to the FBI, including a so -called list of enemies, which was published at the end of his book “Government Gantster”. Mr. Patel denies this description and calls it “a total failure of false characterization”.

Regardless of this, the Republicans eagerly accepted Mr. Patel, who played down his more bombastic statements

“I have no interest, no desire and if they are confirmed, I will not go backwards,” he said in his certificate. “There will be no politicization at the FBI. No retaliation measures are taken by an FBI, I should be confirmed as a FBI director.”

He later promised: “There should be no policy in the FBI”

In an earlier era, Mr. Patel would have had problems surviving the confirmation process, but Mr. Trump and his loyalists see him as a disturbant who assumes supposed anti-conservative prejudices and shakes up the culture of the office. Their hostility to the agency is mainly based on the investigation she opened to Mr. Trump, including his 2016 presidential campaign and his potential relationships with Russia. his handling of classified documents after leaving the office; And his efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 elections.

Mr. Patel has repeatedly occupied asparsions for Russia examination. In order to present the examination as politically motivated, he has incorrectly described the facts and circumstances under which the FBI decided to open it.

Mr. Patel’s impending confirmation is made when deep fear of the FBI, the Trump administration moves quickly to force the agency to impose its will. Since Mr. Trump took office, his representatives have forced several FBI executives and asked for a list of employees who worked on the investigation on the attack on January 6, 2021.

Emil Bove, the meantime No. 2 of the department, has already teamed up with the incumbent director and the representative of the office and accuses them that they have refused to hand over the names of FBI employees, many fear that many fear that many fear It could be feared to only examine violations of the federal law.

Even when Mr. Patel swore during his hearing that his term of office would not be directed by politics, the Ministry of Justice released a wave of prosecutors who worked in cases in which Mr. Trump or the attack of January 6th was involved. . Mr. Bove’s demand that the Ministry of Justice invited the charges against the mayor Eric Adams from New York because the case disabled Mr. Adam’s cooperation in the immigration caused at least seven career prosecutors to step down last week.

An early signal for how closely Mr. Patel will capture his promise is that the agents believe whether he can permanently install the incumbent deputy director Robert Kissane and return to the incumbent director Brian Driskoll to Newark, where he led the office. If Mr. Patel displaces both men, he will probably suspect that he will act as an extension of the White House.

If Mr. Patel is confirmed as a ninth director of the FBI, he would monitor an agency of around 38,000 employees with a proposed fiscal budget of 2025 of more than 11.3 billion dollars. At the management of the agency, he would monitor a huge global company that is responsible for securing terrorism and threatens threats from China, Iran and Russia.

As a former lawyer in the national security department of the Ministry of Justice, he worked as an investigator of the congress and was in the previous Trump administration in a quick result of national security places, including the senior director for fighting terrorism at the National Security Council.

In view of his relative lack of experience, Mr. Patel had hoped to rely on a group of former agents that were brought to the FBI in order to form the advisory board of a director. But this group has already shrunk. Two of them, former managers, have put Mr. Patel on deposit because of the upheaval.

Former officials said that the advisory board team had collected information about accountability, information technology, organizational structure and management selection. Two members – Gregory Mentzer and Tom Ferguson – were former supervisory officers, but never had leading jobs or operations significant parts of the organization.

A young specialist agent from Seattle has recently joined the advisory board, said former and current officials. This agent worked in the White House and as an employee of the National Security Council in the first term of office of Mr. Trump. A Facebook post showed him in the oval office, grinned and flanked Mr. Trump, who was sitting at the determined desk and his hands were reduced.

Mr. Patel also accepted politics in an extraordinary departure from the young era when the candidates wanted to be considered politically neutral. In a long questionnaire that was excluded before his hearing, Mr. Patel admitted that he had served as a replacement for Mr. Trump’s re -election campaign for about two years.

Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.Bi. The deputy director, who was among the former and current FBI agents and Republicans because she was photographed with a T-shirt that supports his wife’s campaign when she unsuccessfully for a seat in the legislation of the state of Virginia in State of Virginia ran.

In fact, Jeff Sessions, Mr. Trump’s first Attorney General, swung the picture during the interview of Mr. McCabe to take James B. Comey as a FBI director after his release. Mr. Sessions insisted that the picture was possibly disqualified.

The predecessor of Mr. Patel, Christopher A. Wray, avoided politics and tried to even avoid the perception of bias. Mr. Wray never met with Mr. Trump or President Biden, partly to ward off allegations that he had triggered the White House.

It is unclear whether Mr. Patel will do the same.