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WASHINGTON: The Republican-controlled US Senate on Thursday confirmed Kash Patel, a staunch loyalist of President Donald Trump, to be director of the FBI, the country’s top law enforcement agency.
Patel, 44, whose nomination sparked fierce but ultimately futile opposition from Democrats, was approved by a 51-49 vote.
The vote was split along party lines with the exception of two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted not to confirm Patel to head the 38,000-strong Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Patel drew fire from Democrats for his promotion of conspiracy theories, his defense of pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and his vow to root out members of a supposed “deep state” plotting to oppose the Republican president.
The Senate has approved all of Trump’s cabinet picks so far, underscoring his iron grip on the Republican Party.
Among them is Tulsi Gabbard, confirmed as the nation’s spy chief despite past support for adversarial nations including Russia and Syria, and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be health secretary.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, in a last-ditch bid to derail Patel’s nomination, held a press conference outside FBI headquarters in downtown Washington on Thursday and warned that he would be “a political and national security disaster” as FBI chief.
Speaking later on the Senate floor, Durbin said Patel is “dangerously, politically extreme.”
“He has repeatedly expressed his intention to use our nation’s most important law enforcement agency to retaliate against his political enemies,” he said.
Patel, who holds a law degree from Pace University and worked as a federal prosecutor, replaces Christopher Wray, who was named FBI director by Trump during his first term in office.
Relations between Wray and Trump became strained, however, and though he had three more years remaining in his 10-year tenure, Wray resigned after Trump won November’s presidential election.
A son of Indian immigrants, the New York-born Patel served in several high-level posts during Trump’s first administration, including as senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council and as chief of staff to the acting defense secretary.
There were fiery exchanges at Patel’s confirmation hearing last month as Democrats brought up a list of 60 supposed “deep state” actors — all critics of Trump — he included in a 2022 book, whom he said should be investigated or “otherwise reviled.”
Patel has denied that he has an “enemies list” and told the Senate Judiciary Committee he was merely interested in bringing lawbreakers to book.
“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” he said.
The FBI has been in turmoil since Trump took office and a number of agents have been fired or demoted including some involved in the prosecutions of Trump for seeking to overturn the 2020 election results and mishandling classified documents.
Nine FBI agents have sued the Justice Department, seeking to block efforts to collect information on agents who were involved in investigating Trump and the attack on the Capitol by his supporters.
In their complaint, the FBI agents said the effort to collect information on employees who participated in the investigations was part of a “purge” orchestrated by Trump as “politically motivated retribution.”
Trump, on his first day in the White House, pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed Congress in a bid to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.