Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, has broadly locked down support from Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee, paving the way for his confirmation to the role after the current director announced his intention to resign when the president-elect takes office in January.
The idea of securing support from the judiciary committee, according to two people familiar with the matter, is that if the committee reports out his nomination perhaps unanimously, it would make it politically harder for any skeptical Republicans to oppose him later.
Trump’s aides working on the controversial nominations all see the same handful of senators as potential hurdles, the people said: Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins – longtime senators with whom Trump has little leverage and are difficult to control.
In Patel’s case, his team would make the argument that McConnell, as an institutionalist, should trust the judiciary committee if it reports out the nomination, the people said. And if Patel gets McConnell’s backing, it would reduce the number of possible no votes below the four-vote threshold.
Whether that argument will be persuasive for any possible holdouts – or whether it will even need to be deployed at all, given Republican senators appear genuinely interested in Patel’s agenda to align the FBI with the White House’s political interests – remains unclear.
But Patel has systematically laid the groundwork in recent meetings on Capitol Hill, securing endorsements from Senator Chuck Grassley, the incoming chairman of the judiciary committee. Patel did 17 meetings this week and has now sat down with every member of the judiciary committee, a Trump transition official said.
On Tuesday, Senator Thom Tillis, who sits on the judiciary committee, posted on Twitter/X: “Kash Patel is the real deal. President Trump campaigned on the promise to enforce our laws equally and fairly and restore the integrity of the FBI. I look forward to supporting Kash Patel’s confirmation.”
That endorsement came after Patel got backing from Senator John Cornyn, who told reporters he expected Patel to be confirmed as FBI director and dismissed concerns about his plans for the FBI as rhetoric. “I interpret that as hyperbole and I think he will tell you that same thing,” he said.
With his deeply polarizing views about gutting the FBI and what critics call an ‘enemies list’ of Patel’s opponents, Patel was seen as one of the controversial nominees who could face difficulty in getting confirmed.
But Patel has benefited from good fortune in recent days, mainly to do with Trump’s other controversial picks such as Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, drawing the brunt of the scrutiny from senators for his sexual misconduct allegations and reports of excessive drinking.
Hegseth started his meetings with senators before Patel and, with the Senate generally unable to focus on more than one embattled nominee at a time, Patel has been able to dodge attention as he made his rounds through the Senate office buildings.
Patel has also benefited from Senate Republicans becoming wary of opposing Trump’s major picks. When Senator Joni Ernst, for instance, expressed opposition to Hegseth, she became the target of a Trumpworld pressure campaign accusing her of trying to get the defense secretary job herself.
The Trump aides working on Patel’s nomination have acknowledged that Hegseth was a useful heat-shield and that using the other nominees for cover has been helpful, the people said. To keep it going, Patel has kept a lower profile and ignored reporters when spotted in the halls of the Senate.
With Hegseth appearing to survive the onslaught of negative coverage last week – his team was told the nominee would probably be confirmed if he made it through last week without having to withdraw, one person familiar with the matter said; the Patel team may luck out with more controversial nominees starting Senate meetings.
Trump’s advisers have conceded that Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be the next director of national intelligence, may face scrutiny over her support for the recently overthrown Assad regime in Syria as she arrived on the Hill on Thursday to meet with the incoming Senate majority leader, John Thune.
And when Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, arrives on the Hill, he will almost certainly struggle to resist engaging with reporters that could create a media circus around his nomination, the Trump advisers said.
