Trump's FBI chief pick, Kash Patel, insists he has no 'enemies list' and won't seek retribution (UPDATED)

WASHINGTON — Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the FBI, insisted to deeply skeptical Democrats on Thursday that he did not have an "enemies list" and that the bureau under his leadership would not seek retribution against the president's adversaries or launch investigations for political purposes. "I have no interest nor desire and will not, if confirmed, go backwards," Patel told a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. "There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by the FBI." The reassurances were aimed at blunting a persistent line of attack from Democrats, who throughout Thursday's hearing confronted Patel with a vast catalog of his incendiary statements. They said those statements raise alarming questions about his loyalty to the president, such as when he described some of the prosecuted Jan. 6 rioters as "political prisoners" and called for a purge of anti-Trump "conspirators" in the government and news media. "There is an unfathomable difference between a seeming facade being constructed around this nominee here today, and what he has actually done and said in real life when left to his own devices," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat. His colleague, Sen. Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, later added, "It is his own words. It is not some conspiracy. It is what Mr. Patel actually said himself." Patel defended defend himself by insisting that Democrats were putting his comments and social media posts in a "grotesque context." He said the suggestion that he had an "enemies list" — a 2023 book he authored includes a lengthy list of former government officials he says are part of the so-called deep state — was a "total mischaracterization." "The only thing that will matter if I'm confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience to the Constitution and a singular standard of justice," Patel said. Patel was picked in November to replace Christopher Wray, who led the nation's premier federal law enforcement agency for more than seven years but was forced out of the job Trump had appointed him to after being seen as insufficiently loyal to him. Patel is a former aide to the House Intelligence Committee and an ex-federal prosecutor who served in Trump's first administration. He's alarmed critics with rhetoric — in dozens of podcasts and books he has authored — in which he has demonstrated fealty to Trump and assailed the decision-making of the agency he's now been asked to lead. But Patel sought on multiple occasions to reassure Democrats that his FBI would be independent from the White House. He would not acknowledge that Trump had lost the 2020 election, conceding only that Joe Biden was sworn in as president. But he did not endorse Trump's sweeping pardon of supporters, including violent rioters, charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. "I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement," Patel said in response to a question from Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the committee. Durbin made his opposition to Patel clear at the outset. Durbin said the FBI is critical in keeping America safe from terrorism, violent crime and other threats, and the nation "needs an FBI director who understands the gravity of this mission and is ready on day one, not someone who is consumed by his own personal political grievances." Patel pledged if confirmed to be transparent and said he would not involve the FBI in prosecutorial decisions, keeping those with Justice Department lawyers instead. "First, let good cops be cops," Patel wrote in outlining his priorities. "Leadership means supporting agents in their mission to apprehend criminals and protect our citizens. If confirmed, I will focus on streamlining operations at headquarters while bolstering the presence of field agents across the nation. Collaboration with local law enforcement is crucial to fulfilling the FBI's mission." Patel found common cause with Trump over their shared skepticism of government surveillance and the "deep state" — a pejorative catchall used by Trump to refer to government bureaucracy. He was part of a small group of supporters during Trump's recent criminal trial in New York who accompanied him to the courthouse, where he told reporters that Trump was the victim of an "unconstitutional circus." That close bond would depart from the modern-day precedent of FBI directors looking to keep presidents at arm's length. Republican allies of Trump, who share the president's belief that the FBI has become politicized, have rallied around Patel and pledged to support him, seeing him as someone who can shake up the bureau and provide needed change. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, sought to blunt attacks on Patel preemptively by focusing on the need to reform an FBI that he said had become weaponized. The FBI in recent years has become entangled in numerous politically explosive investigations, including not just the two federal inquiries into Trump that resulted in indictments but also probes of Biden and his son, Hunter. "It's no surprise that public trust has declined in an institution that has been plagued by abuse, a lack of transparency, and the weaponization of law enforcement," Grassley said. "Nevertheless, the FBI remains an important, even indispensable institution for law and order in our country." He later added: "Mr. Patel, should you be confirmed, you will take charge of an FBI that is in crisis."