During today’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the FBI’s 2026 budget request, FBI Director Kash Patel pitched a whiny fit when Vice Chair Patty Murray called him out for politicizing the agency against those investigating Trump and the Jan 6 insurrectionists.
MURRAY: President Trump has turned the Department of Justice into a tool to go after his perceived enemies, and many of the actions we have now seen at the FBI are alarming. The FBI has reassigned and pushed out career FBI agents for political reasons.
We have seen fear and intimidation promoted throughout the Bureau, including by polygraphing your own staff.
We have seen the arrest of a sitting judge in Wisconsin, and during your confirmation hearing, you committed that there would be no politicization, no retribution at the FBI under your leadership.
You have reportedly placed FBI employees responsible for Investigation January 6th cases on leave. Is that keeping up your promise of no politicization, no retribution?
PATEL: It is, because that is wildly inaccurate. Let me tell you what the FBI has done since I got there. 8,276 federal arrests. 820 kilograms seized of fentanyl.
(Yada, yada, yada)
Instead of answering Murray’s direct question, Patel listed normal FBI functions. Murray got him back on track.
MURRAY: That is not my question.
