Patel rips Democrats after clashes at hearing: ‘Buffoons’

FBI Director Kash Patel rebuked Democratic lawmakers who criticized him on Tuesday during an oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing them of acting “like buffoons on Capitol Hill.”

“This FBI, under my leadership and President Trump’s administration, is here for the people of America, not for the cacophony of the United States Senate and the Democrats and their radical lunacy,” the FBI director said during an interview on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

He added, “We are here to protect Americans.”

Democratic lawmakers on the committee pressed Patel over reports that he used taxpayer dollars to fund personal excursions. The FBI director has refuted these accusations , releasing a July letter he sent to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in which he pledged he was “fully compliant” with agency rules on Monday.

In one heated exchange with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) during the Tuesday hearing, the Democrat slammed Patel over the reports and accused him of lying about subpoenaing journalists. Grassley interrupted his colleague during the lengthy questioning, asking the New Jersey lawmaker if he was “ready to shut up.”

Booker was pressing the FBI director over the administration’s decision to subpoena a reporter from The New York Times who wrote a story about Patel’s girlfriend receiving a detail of SWAT agents.

“I have a right to ask questions about how he’s spending money on his girlfriend, and yet he stonewalls me but will run on Fox News and talk about any and all of these issues,” Booker told Grassley.

“This is ridiculous. This is a sham,” he continued. “And what’s bad is not the person sitting there, who’s a mockery to the office he holds. What’s bad is the people that are enabling him to do so.”

Patel has maintained that the subpoenas were targeted at identifying leakers in the FBI who are talking to journalists.

“This administration focuses on the leakers of classified information that endanger the lives of elected officials and American citizens,” the bureau chief told Booker. “We are not targeting reporters at any point in time.”