President Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, faced a reckoning during his confirmation hearing on Thursday, with Democratic senators asking him to answer uncomfortable questions about his MAGA-inspired conspiracy theories, his supposed political enemies list and his vow that “we’re going to come after people in the media.”
From the start, Patel assured Senate Judiciary Committee members that he would only initiate investigations that had a “predicate” indicating an actual crime, and he promised to open the FBI to “aggressive constitutional oversight from Congress” like never before.
And despite widespread concerns that Patel would seek to punish FBI special agents who assisted since-departed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, Patel pledged to take care of all FBI personnel.