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Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to begin where my wonderful friend and colleague Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island ended in opposing the nomination of Kash Patel to be Director of the FBI.

I served as a U.S. attorney as well, and I know firsthand what an investigation and a prosecution can do to an individual's life even without a conviction. I used to tell my staff that the most important thing we decide to do is to start an investigation or bring charges because that person will be under a magnifying glass, having to defend himself even if no charges are brought and to defend himself even if there is no conviction, and the charges themselves can do irreparable harm to a person's reputation, his finances, his family, his life.

We entrust these positions, investigative and prosecutorial, to people who deserve the credibility and reliance that we give them. So the position of Director of the FBI or Attorney General of the United States or prosecutors and investigators who work for them are not ordinary positions. Even potentially in certain situations, they are more powerful than a member of the U.S. Cabinet in the impact they can have on individual lives.

For the ordinary nominee, any of the defects in character or experience or performance in past jobs would have been disqualifying. We live in a time that is not ordinary, and this nominee is not normal. I have never seen any nominee to a position of significant responsibility that has as many disqualifying factors in his or her background, but I think that one comment about him that strikes me whenever I read it is the full quote from former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Part of that quote has been cited by previous speakers. I want to read the whole quote:

[Kash Patel's] conduct in Mr. Trump's first term and thereafter indicates that as FBI director he would operate according to [Secret Police Chief] Lavrenty Beria's reported comment to Joseph Stalin: ``Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime.''

Now, very few people remember Secret Police Chief Beria and the terror he caused in carrying out Joseph Stalin's edicts to destroy people's lives, to execute them, to eliminate their families but remember the mantra of Beria and Stalin: ``Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime''--make up the crime to fit the man, and we will eliminate him.

We are talking here about a nominee who has an enemies list. He calls it something different. He calls it ``Government Gangsters,'' and he is on a manhunt for them. ``Manhunt'' is his word. He can use different words, but the point here is he is on a mission to use the powers of this office, in Donald Trump's name, for political retribution against his enemies, against Trump's enemies, against MAGA's opponents. To use these institutions for political retribution is the height of irresponsibility. Even to hint at it ought to be disqualifying, and he has made it explicit in his past writings and his statements and speeches not just a couple of times. It is a theme that runs through his public comments; that eliminating enemies through the use of prosecution is not only acceptable but it is desirable.

The FBI is a very special Agency, with 38,000 civil servants, including 13,000 special agents who go after international and domestic terrorism, cybercriminal syndicates, foreign espionage, organized criminal enterprises, including drug cartels, child sexual exploitation, and human trafficking, and many other crimes that affect our lives and the lives of everyday Americans across the country.

All different backgrounds, races, and religions can be victims of crime that the FBI investigates. And the FBI agents put their lives on the line because pursuing these crimes often puts them at risk from bad guys who may not even know that they are shooting at an FBI agent, but it is somebody pursuing them; they may not know that an FBI agent is operating undercover, and they may be killing them. And so the FBI's work is a dangerous business, but it is for our good and our safety.

The American people deserve an FBI leader who is worthy of them. The American people deserve a Director of the FBI who will keep them safe and who will make that safety a priority.

But in recent weeks, the Trump administration has systematically weaponized and politicized both the FBI and the Department of Justice. On her very first day of office, Attorney General Bondi created a Weaponization Working Group--let me repeat that: Weaponization Working Group--and specifically named targets to be investigated: Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith. All of them have led legitimate prosecutions and lawsuits against President Trump.

There have been reports that prosecutors and FBI agents have been reassigned from drug trafficking to do immigration enforcement, from terrorism task forces to immigration enforcement. And the administration has issued allegedly unethical or illegal audits, causing many top prosecutors to bravely resign rather than betray their oaths of office. We are talking about men and women who love their jobs in the Department of Justice and do them well, and they have sacrificed those jobs because they were ordered to take action that was unethical or illegal, in their view.

We need--now more than ever--an FBI Director who is trustworthy and devoted to the ideals and values of the Department of Justice and the Constitution above all. Anyone taking one of those jobs raises their right hand and swears an oath to the Constitution--not to the President, not to the Attorney General, not to any other official; it is to the Constitution.

Kash Patel is not that person, not the person to have that immense responsibility, most especially at this moment. He lacks the judgment; he lacks the integrity; he lacks the character and competence to be FBI Director. Kash Patel's contempt for those agents who put their lives on the line has been clear. He has called them--the FBI--``one of the most cunning and powerful arms of the Deep State.''

And there are now highly credible whistleblower reports that he may have directed the purging of senior leaders at the FBI as well as potentially a mass firing of career FBI officials--those FBI officials who served professionally, with distinction, who put their lives on the line, purged as a result of Kash Patel involving himself, in fact, in those decisions even as, under oath, in response to my questions, he said:

All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution. [All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.]

Well, we stood in front of the FBI headquarters this morning. In that very building, there are individuals who will be fired because they took assignments they didn't choose; they were assigned to criminal investigations that happened to involve Donald Trump--political retribution at its very height. And if he directed the purging of those FBI agents, contrary to the assurances he made to our committee at his nomination hearing, Kash Patel was certainly less than truthful with us.

I have not been without criticism of the FBI. None of us have been. No Agency is perfect. But I am also betting that members of the FBI would say there is room for improvement in this Agency.

Kash Patel would slash and trash the FBI, not improve it. He would engage in political retribution, not constructive reform. He would weaponize the FBI with that enemies list. He may not say it is an enemies list. He may call them government gangsters, but that manhunt would involve political retribution.

And he has conspiracy theories. He has trafficked in them. He said he agrees with a lot of what QAnon says. He engages in election denialism, refusing to say that President Biden won the 2020 election. He has even suggested that the FBI planned the January 6 attack on the Capitol. And he has glorified those rioters by calling them ``political prisoners'' and, in fact, aiding them in their defense--even the rioters who attacked and assaulted police officers and did them grave injury and in some instances contributed to their death.

He has joined them in song, producing the J6 Choir's recording, and he has refused to be honest when it really matters, pleading the Fifth Amendment in the case about Donald Trump's handling of classified documents and then denying us--or at least refusing to cooperate in providing us with access to the testimony that he offered.

The litany of questionable comments and actions by this nominee shows he lacks the character and competence for this job. I have talked about roughly half a dozen various different facts in his background, statements, comments, actions that would be individually disqualifying. All together, they paint a picture of someone who has no proper role anywhere near a law enforcement agency, let alone Director of the FBI.

I am appalled that my Republican colleagues voted for him in committee unanimously on their side. I am appalled that so few may vote against him on the floor today. But I am absolutely sure of this one thing: This vote will haunt anyone who votes for him. They will rue the day they did it.

To my Republican colleagues, think about it. Think about what you will tell your constituents--more important, your family, and maybe your grandchildren--about why you picked and voted for this person who will so completely and utterly disgrace this office and do such great damage to our Nation's justice system.

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