[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 33 (Wednesday, February 19, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1019-S1020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Kashyap Patel

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, soon, we will be voting on the 
nomination of Kash Patel to serve as Director of the FBI. I have spoken 
with my colleagues on this nomination within the last couple of days, 
but I want to spend a few more minutes urging my colleagues to vote for 
Mr. Patel's confirmation.
  Mr. Patel's career shows that he is a man who will fight to defend 
the Constitution and fight to expose corruption. This is exactly the 
kind of experience the FBI Director needs.
  For almost a decade now, Mr. Patel served as a public defender, 
defending the constitutional rights of some of the least popular people 
in America. After serving as public defender, Mr. Patel joined the 
Department of Justice under Democrat President Obama as a 
counterterrorism prosecutor in the National Security Division.
  In this role, he investigated and he prosecuted many important cases, 
including the World Cup bombing in Uganda in 2010 for which he received 
the Award of Excellence.
  In 2017, Representative Devin Nunes asked Mr. Patel to join the House 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to uncover the truth about 
Russiagate, and Mr. Patel did uncover the truth. Through tireless work, 
in regard to that investigation, Mr. Patel showed that Crossfire 
Hurricane was based on fraudulent, even discredited information, 
actually paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton 
campaign.
  After exposing the Russiagate scandal in Congress, Mr. Patel then 
went on to serve in senior national security positions in the National 
Security Council, then as a Deputy Director of National Intelligence 
and as Chief of Staff to the Acting Secretary of Defense.
  Mr. Patel managed large intelligence and defense bureaucracies, 
identified and countered national security threats, and prosecuted and 
defended the accused.
  He has done this while fighting for transparency and accountability 
in government. We all know that if things are transparent, the people 
connected with them are going to be more accountable, and we also know 
that the

[[Page S1020]]

public's business in this great democracy of ours ought to be public.
  Mr. Patel's experience and Mr. Patel's vision is why he has been 
endorsed by organizations representing more than 680,000 law 
enforcement officers and by dozens of former and current FBI agents, 
State attorneys general, and U.S. attorneys.
  These people understand law enforcement. These people understand the 
rule of law, and these people who have endorsed Mr. Patel trust that he 
will do the right thing, and we should as well today by voting for Mr. 
Patel.
  I want to speak now to those who have viciously opposed Mr. Patel's 
nomination. At the heart of their opposition is the fear that he will 
act like Democrats did when Democrats were in power. So these Democrats 
are afraid that the FBI, under Mr. Patel's leadership, will use lawfare 
against political opponents like the FBI used lawfare against President 
Trump and others.
  These Democrats are afraid he will use subpoena power and coordinate 
with the media to target those seeking accountability just like 
Democrats did against Mr. Patel and, also, against my own investigative 
staff.
  These Democrats are afraid that he will deploy the FBI to conduct 
investigations and engage in surveillance against those who disagree 
like they did with Catholic families and parents expressing concern at 
school board meetings.
  These Democrats are afraid that he will retaliate against 
whistleblowers like the Biden administration did against FBI and IRS 
agents who blew the whistle.
  After reviewing Mr. Patel's record and listening to his testimony at 
his hearing, I am convinced that these fears that the Democrats have 
are unfounded. Mr. Patel's leadership will not be business as usual in 
the FBI as it has been in previous administrations when the FBI, the 
people on the 7th floor--not the local agents--were used for political 
weaponization.
  Mr. Patel told us at our hearing he wants to reduce FBI involvement 
in politics and domestic surveillance. Mr. Patel wants to end political 
investigations and strengthen protections for whistleblowers. Mr. Patel 
wants to make the FBI accountable once again, get back the reputation 
that the FBI has had historically for law enforcement, and he wants to 
hold the FBI accountable to Congress, to the President, and most 
importantly, to the people they serve, the American taxpayer.
  My Democratic colleagues often lament that Mr. Patel won't protect 
the independence of the FBI, but there is a fine line between 
independent judgment and being unaccountable. The FBI has been 
unaccountable all too long.
  My Democratic colleagues decry the recent firing of FBI agents and 
somehow want to blame Mr. Patel for those personal decisions. That 
isn't fair, obviously, because he is not running the FBI. As my 
oversight has shown, many of those fired agents were behind the 
retaliation against multiple FBI whistleblowers. They ruined lives and 
careers for their own political hands. They should be held accountable, 
and, yes, they should have been and have been fired.
  The FBI has also kept too many secrets. It has hid from the duly 
elected Members of Congress the origins of the lawfare against 
President Trump, which we all know and which I have shown in my 
exposure of a lot of emails, was in large part from the anti-Trump 
agent, Timothy Thibault.
  Now based on testimony from soon-to-be Deputy Attorney General Todd 
Blanche, we know that the Biden DOJ and FBI violated process by not 
sharing evidence with Trump's defense team that could have helped 
Trump's case against the government.
  If that happened--now, just think, if that happened on the Democrat 
side, you wouldn't hear the end of it. Yet, you can't hear a peep today 
from my Democratic colleagues. The government hid its investigations 
into those who dared to question the Democratic Party line.
  But then, when it is convenient for political reasons, the FBI would 
leak or coordinate with the media to hide the truth and to smear 
people.
  We need to restore transparency; we need to restore oversight; we 
need to restore accountability at the FBI, particularly on that top 
floor of the Hoover Building. Mr. Patel is exactly the man that can do 
that, and it is why those who benefit from the status quo have come so 
forcefully against him with a relentless smear campaign.
  Mr. Patel is a reformer, and we need a reformer in the FBI. We need 
to restore the public trust, and we need to return the FBI to its core 
mission, which is to keep people on our streets safe.
  The bottom line: It is the people doing the everyday work at the FBI, 
enforcing the law, solving crimes that the people on the 7th floor of 
the Hoover Building should be doing, instead of thinking about how we 
can get at our political enemies.
  I will be voting to confirm Mr. Patel. I will urge my colleagues to 
do the same thing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, as I hear the senior Senator from Iowa, it 
is like I am living in another world. I am not alleging that Mr. Patel 
has an enemies list. He is the one that has said that. I am not 
alleging that he would use law enforcement against Donald Trump's 
political enemies, he is the one that has said that.
  And so I will be voting no, and I hope I am wrong.