FBI Director Kash Patel vowed that the bureau would continue on a quest for transparency during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as criticism of his handling of the Charlie Kirk assassination investigation lingers.
In his opening statement to the committee obtained by Fox News Digital, Patel listed a series of accomplishments the agency has achieved since President Donald Trump took office, including tens of thousands of arrests, a realignment of the agency and an emphasis on cracking down on illicit drugs.
Patel acknowledged the growing criticism over his direction of the FBI and challenged lawmakers on the panel to come after him.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘If you want to criticize my 16 years of service, please bring it on.’
Patel kicked off his testimony by offering an update on the FBI’s investigation into the ‘appalling assassination of Charlie Kirk.’
‘It’s important that the FBI is as transparent as possible without jeopardizing our investigation,’ Patel said.
The FBI chief listed off numerous findings in the case, including an ‘extensive review’ of suspect Tyler Robinson’s accounts and devices. He said over 100 interviews had been conducted since the shooting, and that the FBI has received over 11,000 submissions through the National Threat Operations Center and over 16,000 submissions through the Digital Media Tipline.
‘We are making a traditionally nontransparent agency the most transparent it has ever been,’ Patel said.
He lauded the public participation in the case, too, and noted that the tens of thousands of tips that poured in helped identify a suspect.
‘Tyler Robinson is in custody today because of this partnership,’ he said.
Patel’s appearance before the committee had been on the books for weeks before Kirk’s death and was initially geared as an annual oversight hearing of the FBI. However, his handling of the investigation, social media misfires and a wave of firings at the agency have generated fresh scrutiny over his leadership.
Patel came under the microscope for a post he made on X in the hours after Kirk was killed, where he wrote, ‘The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.’
However, that individual and another were caught and released before law enforcement nabbed 22-year-old Robinson, some 33 hours after the shooting.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, addressed Kirk briefly in his opening remarks, saying, ‘God Bless you, Charlie Kirk.’
The chair, who has advocated for whistleblowers for decades, then dove into lengthy remarks about government weaponization and praised Patel for compensating what he said were 10 FBI employees who lost their security clearances in recent years.
‘In the short amount of time you’ve been director, you’ve corrected whistleblower retaliation and increased transparency more than any other FBI director I’ve seen, and I’ve been around here more than anyone else on this committee,’ Grassley said.
But the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., zeroed in on the wide swath of DOJ and FBI personnel who have been fired, sometimes without explanation, a topic expected to crop up repeatedly during Democrats’ questioning.
Durbin criticized Patel’s deference to Trump, saying the director ‘installed MAGA loyalists’ to key positions and initiated internal ‘loyalty tests,’ including polygraph tests. Durbin revealed that some FBI officials failed those tests and needed waivers to continue working at the bureau.
He noted the recent lawsuit brought by three ousted top FBI officials, who have accused Patel of unconstitutionally firing them and wielding the president’s Article II powers to do so.
Durbin also noted that Patel has little experience working in law enforcement, calling his inexperience ‘staggering’ and accusing him of fast-tracking similarly unqualified recruits to fill the FBI’s open jobs.
Patel repeatedly stressed that he has made strides to transform the agency into a more transparent organization and used the ‘Epstein files’ as an example.
Earlier this year a memo from the DOJ and FBI stated that ‘it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,’ after investigating the tens of thousands of documents associated with Jeffrey Epstein.
That triggered a firestorm on Capitol Hill that is still roiling. Prior to becoming director, Patel had promoted the idea that the government was hiding a secret list of sexual predators affiliated with Epstein. Patel during the hearing argued that the ‘original sin’ of the Epstein case began in the early 2000s, where ‘very limited search warrants that didn’t intake as much material into the FBI possession as it should have’ were issued.
‘If I were FBI director then, I wouldn’t have allowed such a limited search warrant to be issued for these types of atrocious offenses,’ he said.
He argued that under former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, Epstein was allowed to enter into a plea deal with non-prosecution agreements, ‘plus the courts issued protective orders and sealed large volumes of material from ever being disclosed.’
‘The non-prosecution barred any future criminal culpability for this entire time period,’ Patel said. ‘Still, this administration has done more than any of the previous administrations to seek transparency in this case.’
‘[The] DOJ has made motions to the court to unseal grand jury records on multiple occasions, but the courts have denied these motions,’ he continued. ‘Further, it was the first Trump administration that brought the renewed case against Epstein in 2019. Under the direction of this president, we have turned over ALL credible information in conjunction with our partners in Congress.’