WASHINGTON — FBI Director Kash Patel sidestepped questions about FBI agents at polling places in the midterm elections at a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday that also featured a tense exchange between GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.
With the November midterm elections fast approaching and the parties jockeying for control of Congress, several Democratic senators wanted assurance from Patel, under oath, that the FBI would not send agents into polling places.
“Do you pledge that you will not, in any way, interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November?” Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, asked.
“I pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies,” Patel told Welch.
Patel in addition faced questions during the five-hour hearing from members of the Judiciary Committee about recent changes to the agency’s hiring requirements, an ongoing probe into 2020 election ballots seized in Georgia, and how the FBI plans to handle crimes committed by AI agents.
‘We have a lackey here’
A boiling point came when Booker spoke beyond his allotted time and name-called Patel a “thug” who “wouldn’t qualify” to be an FBI special agent.
Booker accused Patel of not answering questions about whether the agency was improperly targeting journalists. The FBI subpoenaed multiple New York Times reporters in July after the outlet published accounts of security deficiencies on President Donald Trump’s new Qatari-donated jet now used as Air Force One. The DOJ dropped the subpoenas later that month after a federal judge pressured the agency.
“My concluding remark is we don’t have an FBI director. We have a lackey here who is using government, and frankly, he’s not even a good lackey. He’s an incompetent lackey. He’s like an 18-year-old kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of, doing keg stands and chugging with friends,” Booker said, before continuing the exchange for roughly four minutes more.
“Are you ready to shut up?” Grassley, of Iowa, asked Booker with a raised voice.
Patel brushed off Grassley’s offer during the exchange to respond to Booker.
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