'Total mischaracterisation': Kash Patel distances himself from problematic past at Senate confirmation hearing

Notorious ‘conspiracy theorist’ Kash Patel attempted to navigate through the intense Senate confirmation hearing, which was conducted to determine whether US President Donald Trump’s pick is fit to be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the agency which he once wanted to shut down. During the hearing, one of the instances that garnered attention was his hesitation to answer whether he would use his position to investigate some of  Trump’s political opponents.

The hearing revolved around Patel’s provocative public remarks, in which he attacked the very federal agency he is planning to lead. The senators also questioned his ability to resist political pressure from the White House. Patel, who has been a longtime Trump supporter and was part of the president’s first stint in the White House tried to distance himself from the statement he made on numerous podcasts and in the appendix of his book ‘Government Gangsters’.

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In the past, Patel has shared a list of people he believed were Trump’s adversaries in government. The list included former attorneys general and FBI directors. During the hearing, Patel insisted that it was not the list of Trump’s enemies.“It’s not an enemies list,” Patel said. “It’s a total mischaracterization," he remarked. However, the Democratic lawmakers raised concerns that he might use his far-reaching powers to please Trump.

Patel remains hesitant

When pressed over the matter, Patel refused to explicitly say that he would not use his position to investigate former FBI Director James Comey or others on the list. He maintained that he would not investigate anyone unless they had broken the law. Interestingly, Patel mentioned that the FBI was answerable to the Justice Department and, ultimately, the White House. This was notably in contrast to the reply given by Trump’s attorney general nominee Pam Bondi during her Senate hearing, where she said that the DoJ is answerable to the constitution of the United States.

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In another instance, Democrats caught Patel in an awkward moment as they unexpectedly brought up his role as a witness in the criminal investigation into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. It is pertinent to note that during the investigation in the case, Patel was subpoenaed to testify about whether the documents the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago had been declassified under a “standing declassification order”.

After getting partial immunity, Patel told Senator Cory Booker, that he had witnessed Trump issue a declassification order for some documents, but he did not actually know whether they applied to the documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Democrats remain unimpressed

After the hearing, it became apparent that Democrats were less likely to support Patel’s nomination. Still, Patel attempted to distance himself from his most problematic comments even as Senator Amy Klobuchar read back his past remarks verbatim. Patel said that her quotations were “grotesque” mischaracterizations at one point in time, he did not remember making the comments which were being read back to him.

“I am quoting his own words,” Klobuchar said. The January 6 riots were also mentioned during the hearing. When asked about Trump’s decision to pardon 1,600 people charged in connection to the attack, many of whom were convicted of assaulting police officers, Patel made it clear that he has always rejected violence against law enforcement officials and did not agree with Trump’s commutations.

The Indian-origin lawyer formally served as a public defender in Florida before joining the justice department in 2014 as a line prosecutor in the national security division. In 2017, Patel became one of the top Republican aides on the House Intelligence Committee, where he wrote a provocative memo charging the FBI and the Justice Department of abusing surveillance powers to spy on a Trump adviser. The memo was eventually criticised as misleading, though an inspector general later found errors with aspects of the surveillance.

With inputs from agencies.