Senate questions Trump loyalist and UR alumnus tapped to head FBI

Senators questioned President Donald Trump's pick to head the FBI, University of Richmond alumnus Kash Patel, '02, in a Senate hearing Jan. 30 that brought up his thoughts on the 2020 election and his connection to a white nationalist podcaster.

Patel, a staunch Trump ally, was first hired by Trump in 2019 as a staffer for the National Security Council. He quickly climbed the ranks, becoming its principal deputy of national intelligence in February 2020, chief of staff to the secretary of defense in November 2020 before being tapped by Trump to head the FBI in November 2024.

Patel graduated from the UR in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and history. He then completed his law degree in 2005 at Pace University.

Many Republicans believe that Patel would help improve the FBI’s public appearance through reforms to the agency. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared on Face the Nation shortly after Patel’s appointment to express his support for him.

‘I think Kash Patel is a very strong nominee,” Cruz said. “...All of the weeping and gnashing of teeth and all of the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI and clean out the corrupted partisans who sadly have burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI.”

Patel described his two-pronged approach to the bureau during the exhaustive five hour hearing, saying he would crack down on crime and rebuild trust in the agency.

“I'm going to let good cops be cops and put handcuffs on the bad guys and put child molesters in prison and put murderers in prison and make sure fentanyl doesn't kill another one of your constituents,” Patel said. “Trust in the FBI [has] degraded, not by my opinion, by the Gallup poll, that only 40% of Americans have trust and faith in the FBI. It is a cataclysmic failure in leadership to get to that point that did not happen over time.”

Many Democrats are wary about Patel's appointment, pointing to what they called a history of missteps. Three days before Patel’s hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), sent a letter to the judiciary committee stating that Patel had broken protocol during a hostage swap that happened in Yemen in October 2020.

“This is the second known instance of Mr. Patel breaking hostage recovery protocol to inappropriately insert himself in a sensitive high-profile recovery mission,” Durbin wrote in the correspondence. “An official who puts mission and the lives of Americans in jeopardy for public notoriety and personal gain is unfit to lead the country’s primary federal law enforcement, and investigation agency.”

Concern about Patel’s involvement in Trump's handling of documents at Mar-a-Lago, his response to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and his appearances on internet personality Stew Peter’s podcast where Peter has previously expressed white nationalist and anti-Semitic views were also brought up at the hearing.

In line with other Trump cabinet picks, Patel refused to clearly state that Joe Biden won the 2020 election when asked by Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

“What’s so hard about saying Biden won the 2020 election?” Welch said.

“President Biden was certified and sworn in. I don’t know how else to say it,” Patel said.

“I can say Trump won. I didn’t vote for him, but he won,” Welch said. “You understand what I’m asking. Can you say the words, ‘Joe Biden won?’”

“Joe Biden was the president of the United States,” Patel answered.

In the coming days, the committee will vote on Patel’s appointment to decide if he will become director of the FBI. 

Contact Managing Editor Andrea Padilla at andrea.padilla@richmond.edu.