WASHINGTON ― FBI Director Kash Patel faced intense scrutiny at a Senate hearing on Tuesday over his handling of the investigation into conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination and his purge of top agency officials perceived as disloyal to President Donald Trump.
Democrats hammered Patel for posts he made the day of the shooting last week that prematurely and erroneously announced that the FBI had caught the suspect in Kirk’s shooting, even though it was the wrong person.
“Mr. Patel was so anxious to take credit for finding Mr. Kirk’s assassin that he violated one of the basics of effective law enforcement: At critical stages of an investigation, shut up and let the professionals do their job,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday.
Patel defended his work on the investigation, saying the manhunt for the suspect was aided by the FBI’s release of videos of the suspect. The father of the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, said he recognized his son in the footage and then turned him in to the authorities.
“Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure,” Patel said of his bungled social media posts in a Fox News “Fox & Friends” interview on Monday. “But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not.”
Although Patel’s handling of the investigation drew bipartisan criticism, including reportedly within the Trump White House and the FBI, Republican senators on the committee largely defended him by saying that he simply made a mistake.
“So he announced two things that turned out to be a mistake. Everybody makes a mistake,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters on Monday.
Durbin also pressed Patel over reports that Patel had required officials at the FBI to undergo polygraph tests for “loyalty” to himself and to Trump, and his firing of FBI agents who have criticized his leadership. Patel repeatedly declined to answer.
“I reject any reports that have false information in them,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
