FBI Director Kash Patel changed his tune Thursday on a White House proposal to cut his agency’s budget, giving his “full support” to a request that, a day before, he said he was working to avoid because it would force him to fire 1,300 of his employees.
The controversial FBI director in his opening remarks before the Senate Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee said he appeared there in “full support of the president’s budget.”
And Patel avoided criticizing the proposed $545 million in FBI cuts the White House outlined in its “skinny” budget request for fiscal 2026, an approximate 5 percent cut from current funding levels.
