During his Senate confirmation hearing, President Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, was asked by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin (D-IL) why he said the FBI planned the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Patel denied making the statement that Durbin attributed to him — “That’s not what I said,” Patel replied, one of the instances of Patel giving what Democrats on the Committee described as “comically evasive and petulant answers to Members of the Senate refusing to acknowledge plain facts about his own statements.”
In a statement, Durbin contends Patel spread the conspiracy theory about the FBI’s January 6 involvement on his podcast, where he asked, “What was the FBI doing planning January 6th for a year?”
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Patel during the hearing that he is “not fit” to be the FBI Director and pointed to Patel’s promotion of a song sung by January 6 rioters who pleaded guilty to violent crimes against Capitol Police on that day.
In an attempt to cast further doubt on Patel’s fitness for the job, Senate Judiciary Democrats on X are amplifying a social media post which Patel shared on Trump’s TruthSocial network in 2022.
It’s a meme of Patel in a construction worker’s uniform using a chainsaw on a log of wood, appearing to slice off the faces of members of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack on the Capitol, including Schiff and former Republican Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL).
Patel also saws off effigies of then-President Joe Biden and then-US Attorney General Merrick Garland, among other prominent Democrats including Pete Buttigieg and Hillary Clinton.
A serious FBI Director nominee doesn’t share a video of himself chainsawing Members of Congress, political opponents, and media outlets.
Kash Patel is dangerous, disqualified, and weird. pic.twitter.com/j6UnxdYZtl
— Senate Judiciary Democrats
(@JudiciaryDems) January 31, 2025
The Democrats wrote: “A serious FBI Director nominee doesn’t share a video of himself chainsawing Members of Congress, political opponents, and media outlets. Kash Patel is dangerous, disqualified, and weird.”
In a memo released by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Patel is also described as a “cartoonish choice for the job.”
Raskin asserts that “Trump nominated Patel to serve as FBI Director only for his unflinching subservience and sycophancy. He knew Patel would carry out his agenda of unhinged retribution and vengeance without regard to the rule of law and the Constitution. “
Durbin explained why he’s not voting for Patel: “Mr. Patel has neither the experience, the temperament, nor the judgment to lead an agency of 38,000 agents and 400 field offices around the globe.”
Emphasizing that partisanship is not part of his confirmation calculus, Durbin added: “During the time I’ve served on this committee, I’ve had the opportunity to consider four FBI Director nominations. Each one was a Republican, and I voted for all of them.”