Senate Democrats press Patel on elections, journalist subpoenas: 5 takeaways

FBI Director Kash Patel fielded questions Tuesday on everything from bestiality to whether the FBI might aid in any efforts to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.

Like his former colleague then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, he showed up to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing with opposition to Democratic lawmakers, though Patel largely pushed back against Democratic attacks by boasting of arrest records, falling violent crime rates and captured most-wanted felons.

But that did not impress Democrats who see him as benefiting from already ongoing work.

“As far as I’m concerned, the good work being done by the FBI agents and analysts of the sort that you describe as happening in spite of you, not because of you,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said.

Republican lawmakers generally complimented Patel on a job well done, leaving the sparring with the FBI director to the Democrats.

Growing concern over FBI involvement in elections

Numerous Democratic lawmakers pressed Patel on whether he would comply with any demands from President Trump to interfere with November’s midterms.

Patel initially told Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) he was “aware” of laws prohibiting deployment of armed federal officials to election sites as well as policy barring investigations inside polling places on Election Day.

But exchanges with other lawmakers proved more contentious and resulted in murkier answers.

“Can you commit to this committee that you will not send FBI agents to the polls on Election Day?” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked.

“The FBI will follow the law. If there’s a reason to go there because there’s been a violation of law, we will. Otherwise, we won’t,” Patel answered.

Blumenthal said he should have received an “unequivocal, clear, unambiguous commitment that the FBI will be kept out of election interference.”

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) noted that Trump has claimed that the only way the Democrats could win the midterms is if they cheated.

“The president is completely justified in making his opinions known, as does any president before him,” Patel said, noting the FBI has election crisis coordinators in all 56 field offices.

“It’s the American people — Republicans and Democrats and Independents — who have to be the deciders of who their representatives in Congress are, not the president of the United States, not a compliant, servile FBI director who does the will of the president,” Welch said.

Subpoenas to journalists and a claim of perjury

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) accused Patel of lying about subpoenaing journalists in what turned into a lengthy exchange that prompted Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), chair of the committee, to raise his voice and ask the lawmaker if he was “ready to shut up.”

Booker said Patel has given inconsistent statements about the bureau’s practices, noting May testimony in which he said no journalists were being investigated while numerous subpoenas were later issued to reporters.

“Grand jury subpoenas were served on three New York Times reporters; armed FBI agents went to their homes. You subpoenaed their phone company for their call records. You subpoenaed the records of one reporter’s mother. You get upset when somebody writes a fair story about your girlfriend, but you’re out there using the FBI to go after a reporter’s mom,” Booker said, noting reporters’ spouses’ records were also sought.

Patel maintains the journalists weren’t under investigation but rather information was sought from them as part of an effort to unmask leakers providing information to journalists.

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

But the Democratic senator noted that one of the reporters whose records were subpoenaed wrote a story about Patel’s girlfriend receiving a detail composed of SWAT agents. Booker pointed to other cases where a judge had admonished the FBI for seeking subpoenas of journalists.

“None of these line up. Somewhere you’re lying. The message that every reporter in America is getting right now is that we have an FBI director that is attacking the most vaunted of our amendments, which is our first one: freedom of the press. If you write about this director, this FBI will run your name through government databases. … This man before us using a police agency to settle personal grievances about a story that embarrassed him, and this is not a one-time thing, Mr. Patel,” he said.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) later showed a photo of Patel with a quote from him stating that the media is “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen.”

Patel sought to head off questions about his use of the FBI jet to travel to the 2026 Winter Olympics or to go see his country music singer girlfriend’s concerts by releasing a July 20 letter he’d written to Grassley ahead of the hearing.

“As Director, I have reimbursed all personal travel and expenses and am fully compliant with and strictly follow the Office of Management and Budget rules,” the FBI director wrote.

Compared with past appearances before Congress, Patel received fewer questions about his travels.

Hirono noted that a VIP snorkel trip at the site of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is “a sacred site. Sacred. That is why these tours are rare.”

“As part of a broader pattern of you using your office to benefit yourself, showing your lack of judgment and character, you have wasted untold taxpayer dollars driving around in foreign luxury cars, partying in Italy, and flying a private jet to play golf and watch hockey. There has been bipartisan criticism. I’m glad to know that some of my Republican colleagues actually criticized some of this activity,” she said.

Patel grew defensive when asked about his trip to Italy for the Winter Olympics by Welch, who noted photos of the FBI director partying with the U.S. men’s national hockey team in their locker room.

“What you’ll never understand is the players who are my friends invited me into the locker room. What you’ll never understand is that during that trip — where 300,000 Americans went to Italy to participate in the games and watched them — not a single security incident occurred,” Patel said before going on to reference the extradition of a man held in Italy.

“And the most important thing to come out of that trip, besides the American men defeating the Canadians and celebrating the love of this country and inviting me in to do so is the fact that we obtained the seizure and capture of China’s most prolific hacker and returned him to the United States.”

Patel refused to answer several questions posed by Democratic lawmakers, routinely citing ongoing investigations.

He would not answer questions about a Florida-based federal investigation into a number of perceived Trump enemies, including into former CIA Director John Brennan, as well as investigations that included subpoenas of journalists to various shootings carried out by immigration officers.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who questioned the director about immigration-related shootings, asked, “Why does it take so long?” when Patel said he was unable to answer.

“I know some of these shootings and incidents have been more recent, but some go back months and months and months, some to last year,” Padilla said.

Hirono seemed to reference Patel’s posts announcing the arrests of shooters following the assassination of Charlie Kirk and a shooting at Brown University.

“You know you testified today that to questions you don’t feel like answering — ‘It’s ongoing. It’s an investigation. Can’t talk about it.’ And yet you have actually posted things that should be ongoing and where you should keep your mouth shut,” she said.

In one notable exchange , Patel was asked about a shift in FBI hiring practices that lifted longtime bans on selecting new trainees if they have engaged in prostitution or bestiality.

“When you saw bestiality — I say this with respect to the person who recommended it — why didn’t you just say, ‘What planet did you parachute in from? Why do I want to lead with my chin and get into bestiality?’” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked.

Patel acknowledged he had some reservations but said prospective hires could have been trafficked into “degrading acts of all kinds.”

“That was my initial response, senator. But they then explained to me and showed me cases in which people were forced into it and had applied to the FBI, and so I thought they should be considered. It’s not an automatic disqualification. That’s all,” the director said.

Those activities have long been a bar to working at the FBI, as engaging in prostitution is a crime and the FBI works on sex trafficking cases. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, earlier this week said lifting the ban on animal cruelty is not a “minor technical adjustment.”

“But you’re not telling us today that if a human being had sex with an animal, that they can still be an FBI agent,” Kennedy asked toward the end of his line of questioning.