Patel Clashes With Senators at First Oversight Hearing

FBI Director Kash Patel clashed with multiple Democratic senators during his first oversight hearing Tuesday, with lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee pressing him on issues including the firings of FBI personnel, the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the FBI's handling of the investigation of Charlie Kirk's murder.

• During a shouting match with Patel, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker predicted he wouldn't last long as FBI director, slamming him for pushing out agents with decades of experience, Fox News reports. "I think this might be your last oversight hearing, because as much as you supplicate yourself to the will of Donald Trump and not the Constitution of the United States of America, Donald Trump has shown us in his first term, and in this term, he is not loyal to people like you," Booker said. Patel told Booker: "This is my time, not yours."

• Patel defended his widely criticized handling of the Kirk investigation, saying it had been his decision to release more photos and videos of the suspect, NBC News reports. "A few hours later, that suspect was in custody pursuant to the interrogation of the suspect's own father, who stated, 'When I saw that video that you released, I recognized it was my son, and I confronted him,' and he was handed over to lawful law enforcement authorities," Patel said. Asked about his announcement that a "subject" was in custody, who was later released, Patel acknowledged that he could have been "more careful in my verbiage."
• Patel denied that he had taken orders from Trump to fire people at the FBI, NBC reports. "You assured one of my colleagues that you would honor the internal review process at the FBI," Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, referring to remarks Patel made during his confirmation hearings. "I'm not going to mince words. You lied to us." Asked if anybody from the White House had contacted him about personnel decisions, Patel said firings were his decision and the "only way people get terminated at the FBI is if they fail to meet the muster of the job and their duties, and that is where I will leave it."
• The AP reports that Patel shouted over Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff in an exchange about the Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell's prison transfer. Patel told Schiff he was the "biggest fraud to ever sit in the United States Senate" and a "political buffoon at best." Schiff, whose feud with Patel goes back years, said, "You can make an internet troll the FBI director, but he will always be nothing more than an internet troll."
• Republican Sen. John Kennedy also asked Patel about the Epstein files. "This issue is not going to go away, and I think the essential question for the American people is this: They know that Epstein trafficked young women for sex to himself," Kennedy said. "They want to know who, if anyone else, he trafficked these young women to." Politico notes that in contrast to President Trump's remarks about the files being a "hoax," Patel said he agreed with Kennedy. "I am not saying that others were not trafficked and others were not involved," Patel said. "The information we are releasing now is historic and it is also to the maximum capacity that the law allows."