The Senate has narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as as President Donald Trump's FBI director. The 51-49 vote Thursday puts the Trump loyalist atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite Democrats' doubts about his qualifications and concerns he'll do Trump’s bidding and go af

Summary

The Senate confirmed Kash Patel as FBI director in a narrow 51-49 vote, with two Republicans opposing.

A Trump loyalist, Patel has criticized the FBI and vowed to target anti-Trump “conspirators.” Democrats raised concerns over his qualifications, past statements, and potential politicization of the bureau.

The FBI faces internal turmoil, with leadership changes and Justice Department demands for agent records tied to the Jan. 6 investigation.

Patel denies involvement in potential firings but supports major FBI reforms, shifting focus from intelligence to traditional law enforcement.

  • talEnglish
    71·
    2 days ago

    Dems need to catch the fuck up.

    I don’t think that the minority party in the Senate can block a nomination. They can do some procedural things to slow down approval, they can ask questions of the candidate, and they can officially express concerns, but not stop it.

    kagis

    Yeah.

    https://checkyourfact.com/2025/02/10/fact-check-democrats-slow-trump-nominations-block-them/

    FACT CHECK: Democrats Can Slow Down Trump Nominations, But Not Completely Block Them

    A post shared on X claims that Democrats could block all of President Donald Trump’s nominations.

    Verdict: Misleading

    While Democrats can slow Trump’s nominees, they cannot block them permanently without Republican support.

    They’d need to convince some Republicans to cross party lines to do so. Which…might be doable, if they can find some sort of thing to concede on, but at the moment, the Republicans have a trifecta, which means that there’s very little that they actually need from the Democrats. If a Republican senator were deeply-concerned enough about a nominee to cross party lines without any other reason, he could do that, but he’d potentially suffer political harm unless the voters in his state felt the same way.

    EDIT: Trump nominated Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, and the Republican Senate wasn’t onboard with that. So it can happen. But they’ve gotta be pretty unhappy with the nominee.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/gaetz-withdraws-consideration-trump-attorney-general-2024-11-21/

    WASHINGTON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Hardline Republican Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general after the former lawmaker faced opposition from Senate Republicans over his past conduct.

    Gaetz, who resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives last week, was the subject of an Ethics Committee probe into allegations of having sex with an underage 17-year-old girl. He has denied wrongdoing.