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Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked a range of agencies that previously employed Kash Patel to come forward with information about possible misconduct by the controversial pick of President-elect Trump to lead the FBI.
The letters laid out a series of allegations, including that Patel pushed to stop the coordination of the transition with the incoming Biden administration, tried to declassify information that would be favorable to Trump and identified himself as a useful figure for to the man leading Trump’s efforts to thwart the transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election.
“The Director must be able to carry out the FBI’s mission in an unbiased, impartial, and irreproachable manner. The credible allegations against Mr. Patel described above are deeply troubling, and the Committee cannot adequately consider his nomination without further information about his underlying conduct,” Dubin wrote in letters to the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the Office of the Director. of National Intelligence.
Collectively, the letters bring together years of reporting on controversies behind Patel.
A letter points Bloomberg reports showing that Patel coordinated efforts with White House and Justice Department officials, as well as Republican lawmakers, to declassify documents he deemed favorable to Trump.
That includes dispositions of interviews with former Obama-era officials who were involved in the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia.
Durbin’s letter indicates that Patel may have made improper disclosures of classified information during the process, noting that the Justice Department reportedly received a complaint of an intelligence agency about one of his revelations.
The letter to the Justice Department also notes that then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, now Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA, apparently identified Patel as a “trusted” figure to coordinate with Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official who worked to pass on the Trump document. baseless claims of voter fraud about the 2020 election.
This detail comes from Clark’s notes obtained by the committee.
The request seeks all information from DOJ and ODNI regarding Patel’s declassification efforts, his contacts with Ratcliffe and any investigation into the improper disclosure of classified information.
One letter also points to previous reports that Patel may have worked to slow transition efforts at the Pentagon.
“During his tenure, Mr. Patel was accused of obstructing the transition work of the Biden Administration by engaging with the Department of Defense, of injecting himself and another political appointee into the processes normally handled by nonpartisan career civilian and military officials and ignoring requests from the Biden Administration transition team,” Durbin wrote.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Patel’s own confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled, but he was a frequent topic of conversation during the hearing of Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department, Pam Bondi.
Many lawmakers pointed to Patel’s list of “government gangsters” included in his book of the same name, a list of figures he has previously said must be held accountable.
And as a former member of the House Intelligence Committee, he was a key aide in the fight against the investigation into the Trump campaign, an issue that inspired a children’s book he has also written.
Asked how he would respond if Patel wanted to ignite investigations into Trump’s adversaries, Bondi insisted he would follow the law.
“If he is confirmed, and if I am confirmed, he will follow the law if I am the attorney general of the United States of America. And I don’t think I would do anything differently,” Bondi said Wednesday.
