The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee has accused Kash Patel, President Trump’s choice for FBI director, of arranging firings at the bureau before being confirmed.
In a letter to the Justice Department’s inspector general cited by The New York Times, Senator Richard J. Durbin from Illinois said he had “highly credible information from multiple sources” that Patel secretly helped remove career officials from the FBI.
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‘Misconduct is beyond the pale’
“This alleged misconduct is beyond the pale and must be investigated immediately,” Durbin wrote to Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz.
This claim comes as the committee is set to vote on Patel’s nomination on Thursday. Durbin warned that if true, then Emil Bove, the acting second-in-command at the Justice Department, had fired civil servants “only because a private citizen asked.” He also suggested that Patel “may have lied under oath” during his confirmation hearing last month.
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Durbin’s letter, which The New York Times cited, described a meeting between Bove, who has led efforts to fire Justice Department prosecutors and FBI officials. In this meeting, Bove reportedly told officials that he “received multiple calls from Stephen Miller the night before. Miller was pressuring him because Patel wanted the FBI to remove targeted employees faster as DOJ had already done with prosecutors,” according to the letter.
‘KP wants movement at FBI’
Durbin cited information from “multiple sources” and included notes from the meeting. The notes read, “KP wants movement at FBI, reciprocal actions for DOJ.”
During his Senate testimony last month, Patel said he was “not aware” of any Trump administration plans to fire FBI officials linked to investigations into Trump. He also claimed, “I don’t know what’s going on right now over there.”
However, Durbin claimed that a new group of Trump appointees at the FBI had kept Patel informed. According to Durbin, every member of this group called the FBI director’s advisory team and told at least one FBI official before Patel’s confirmation hearing on 30 January that they had spoken directly with him.
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Just hours after Patel’s testimony, reports emerged that about six senior FBI officials had been told they would be fired within days if they didn’t resign or retire. The next day, an FBI-wide memo said Bove had ordered their removal and asked for the names of all agents involved in investigating the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.
Bove had previously worked as one of Trump’s criminal defence lawyers before being made acting deputy attorney general. This put him in charge of prosecutors he had recently fought against in court.
On 29 January, the FBI’s acting leaders, Brian Driscoll and Robert C. Kissane, held a meeting where they warned that “a lot of names were on the list” and that top supervisors would have to retire or be fired.
(With inputs from agencies)