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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is in crisis. Tomorrow will be the first time the Director, Kash Patel, will come before the Senate Judiciary Committee as Director to be questioned about his management of the Bureau.

In just the first weeks of this administration, we witnessed the unprecedented and forced removal of dozens of senior FBI officials-- decorated career professionals who spent their lives protecting this country from terrorism, espionage, and cyber attacks. These patriots swore an oath to defend the Constitution and served Republican and Democratic Presidents alike.

They were shown the door for one reason: political retribution. Don't take my word for it. Just last week, former Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll filed a Federal lawsuit accusing Director Patel and other Trump officials of orchestrating the politically motivated purge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Those who are familiar with the history of this Agency know that we went to great lengths to depoliticize the ranks of the FBI, the Director having a 10-year term, which meant that he or she would outlast any single President.

Time and again, we have set standards for the FBI that were above and beyond those across the ranks of government. There was a time when an FBI agent had to either have a law degree or a degree in accounting to qualify to be an FBI agent. It was a professional operation. There were questions raised about J. Edgar Hoover and other in the past, but basically the FBI has enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best law enforcement Agencies in the world.

According to Driscoll, though, Mr. Patel said:

The FBI tried to put the President in jail, and he hasn't forgotten it.

It makes sense. And no one up and down the chain of command has been spared from his retribution at every level of government. All six of the FBI's Executive Assistant Directors--gone under the Trump administration. At least 18 special agents in Chicago of major field offices--gone. As many as 5,000 nonpartisan career public servants-- gone.

This brain drain at the FBI took place under Patel. It represents thousands of years of institutional knowledge wiped away in the blink of an eye. And when the FBI Director is so clearly ill-prepared to lead when under pressure, this deliberate razing of law enforcement expertise from his organization is even more shocking and dangerous for national security.

Brian Driscoll dedicated his professional life to serving his country. For nearly two decades, he held some of the Bureau's most demanding and sensitive assignments--serving on a SWAT team, leading the elite Hostage Rescue Team, and serving as Tactical Section Chief for the Critical Incident Response Group. For his bravery under fire during tactical operations, Mr. Driscoll was awarded both the FBI Medal of Valor and the Shield of Bravery--among the highest honors the Bureau can bestow.

Mr. Driscoll was forced out after he resisted Patel and the White House's demand that he produce a list of thousands of FBI personnel who worked on investigations related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Keep the record straight in your mind. On January 6, an insurrectionist mob crashed into this building and drove Congress away at time when we were actually counting the ballots for the electoral college to determine the next President.

President Trump had rallied these demonstrators down on the Mall, and they marched up here, crashed through the windows, beat up on our police, and actually came into this Senate Chamber, aping themselves around here, sitting in the chair of the Presiding Officer. It was a sad and embarrassing day in the history of the United States.

I will just draw an analogy. If we heard that a mob crashed through the doors of Parliament in the House of Commons in London, what would we think? My goodness. What has happened to that great country?

Well, it happened here. I was an eyewitness to it, as were hundreds of others--driving out the Senators and the Vice President of the United States, Vice President Pence, from that chair that the Presiding Officer is sitting in.

That was the reality. Over 140 Capitol and DC police were injured in the process. Several gave their lives as result of it.

It was a serious moment. It was an embarrassing moment in our history. And now there is an effort to whitewash it. The first stop was with the FBI.

When the FBI prosecuted these mobsters who crashed into this building and sent some of them to jail, there was a steady beat from Mr. Patel and others that it was unfair. He even went so far as to organize those who had been arrested and prosecuted successfully or pled guilty into a choir. Yes, that is right--a singing group. He had them making some kind of musical selection from time to time, trying to diminish the seriousness of the charges against them.

So what happened when Mr. Patel--totally unqualified--became head of the FBI? He went out looking for FBI agents who investigated those mobsters and those insurrectionists. That is what was behind Mr. Driscoll's decision not to cooperate with him--so that those agents who were simply doing their duty and handing out successful prosecutions would not be penalized.

Mr. Driscoll's removal deprived the FBI of a leader whose expertise, courage, and judgment were forged over decades on the frontlines defending America's security.

After leaving a promising career in finance, Mehtab Syed dedicated nearly 20 years to the FBI, rising from counterterrorism assignments and overseas postings in Islamabad and Amman to senior leadership in cyber and counterintelligence. She was a special agent in charge of the Salt Lake City field office and now should be leading the investigation of the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, but she was forced out this summer because, in the words of someone at the Bureau, she was ``not a good fit.'' She was a woman of color. They don't fare well in the Trump administration.

We don't even know exactly what impact her steady and experienced leadership could have had on this investigation. But we lost a talented and dedicated person whose talents were applied for the safety of our country. We do know that the person who pushed her out--Director Patel--who will be testifying tomorrow, quickly took to social media and falsely announced that the suspect was in custody--remember that?-- only to be forced to walk back those claims shortly thereafter.

At least 18 special agents in charge at the FBI--the top leaders in the field--have been forced into retirement or reassigned to diminished roles.

This hollowing out of the FBI creates a danger to the security of this country. These are not midlevel bureaucrats; these men and women oversee hundreds of agents and manage some of the most sensitive and complex investigations in the country. Many of these special agents in charge have spent their careers in counterintelligence and cyber operations, defending this country against hostile foreign powers, espionage, and cyber attacks.

Many devoted decades to civil rights enforcement, public corruption, and violent crime investigations, ensuring that State and local law enforcement across the country were working closely with seasoned Federal law enforcement leaders they can trust. Still others rose from frontline criminal work to lead major field offices. Their backgrounds range from forensic science to counterintelligence--skills not easily replaced and desperately needed.

Director Patel's foolhardy decision to force out these leaders within the FBI has hollowed out this important Agency. It has cost the Bureau decades of institutional knowledge and diminished its capacity to respond to the greatest threats facing our Nation.

Tomorrow at the hearing, I will go into detail about some of the Bureaus and Agencies within the FBI that have been diminished and hollowed out. Instead, many of the professionals of that Agency have been transported to the President's mass deportation crusade.

These dedicated professionals and so many more were fired, forced out, or reassigned to diminished roles because they had the courage to do their jobs, whether that meant investigating the January 6 riot, preventing domestic terrorism, pursuing corruption, or upholding the rule of law.

The FBI Agents Association has warned that the Patel-Trump purge of the FBI will ``severely weaken the Bureau's ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats and ultimately risk setting up the Bureau for failure.''

At a moment when foreign adversaries are shredding our cyber defenses, when terrorist organizations remain determined to strike, when violent crime continues to threaten our communities, we are losing the very people best equipped to respond.

The American people deserve an FBI that is focused on keeping them safe and protecting our Constitution. Instead, what they are getting is an FBI that prioritizes political retribution and the Director's social media clout.

Tomorrow, I will press Director Patel on his decisions to weaken the FBI, which was designed to protect our American families, by forcing out its most experienced public servants at the expense of our national security and public safety.

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