{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/kash-patel-is-the-least-qualified-and-most-partisan-fbi-director-in-our-nations-history-durbin-says-in-opening-statement-in-senate-judiciary-committee-fbi-oversight-hearing", "\u201cKash Patel Is The Least Qualified And Most Partisan FBI Director In Our Nation\u2019s History,\u201d Durbin Says In Opening Statement In Senate Judiciary Committee FBI Oversight Hearing", "2026-09-15", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "IL", "Richard J. Durbin", "D000563", "www.durbin.senate.gov", "durbin", "https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "In his opening statement, Durbin criticized Director Patel\u2019s failed leadership, citing his weaponization of the FBI, his involvement in covering up the Epstein files, his misuse of FBI resources, and more\n\nWASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered an opening statement in today\u2019s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing conducting oversight on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) featuring testimony from FBI Director Kash Patel. During his remarks, Durbin underscored that Americans are less safe with Kash Patel leading the FBI as he is far more concerned with weaponizing the agency against the President\u2019s perceived political enemies while covering up the wrongdoings of President Trump\u2019s allies. Further, Director Patel\u2019s personal conduct\u2014wasting and exploiting FBI resources and failing to account for when official business ends and personal recreation begins\u2014has shown that he is a liability to national security.\n\nKey Quotes:\n\n\u201cLet me say at the outset, that we just heard again, an introduction by the Chairman [Grassley] that gave reference to Crossfire Hurricane and a lot of things that are in the history of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over a year ago, all of the Democrats on this Committee said, \u2018Stop giving these speeches, and bring the people before us to testify under oath as to what actually happened.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cJack Smith, the special counsel, who is a constant reference point when it comes to this \u2018Grand Conspiracy,\u2019 has volunteered for more than a year to appear before this Committee under oath and answer the questions. What more could we ask of him?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps in a few weeks when we have been promised he will show up, they [Republicans] could start by explaining, why did you wait a year if we are talking about a \u2018Grand Conspiracy?\u2019 Jack Smith, the special counsel, will be under oath before this committee. Each of us will have a chance to ask pertinent questions to clear it up. For some reason, the decision was made at some level to let this controversy fester rather than bring the person in who could actually answer the questions.\u201d\n\n\u201cDirector Robert Mueller led the FBI at this tumultuous time [post-9/11]. He, more than any single individual, was responsible for modernizing the FBI to combat the threats we face in the 21st century. I was proud to work with him on a bipartisan basis\u2026 We didn\u2019t always agree, but I always respected him. He was a patriot and a person of honesty and integrity.\u201d\n\n\u201cModernizing the FBI has not been an easy process. Balancing a growing focus on national security and terrorism prevention efforts with traditional work investigating white-collar crime and corruption has taken a lot of time and effort. Over the years, the FBI, as it gained more authorities, at times in history, misused it. There is still work to be done to earn public trust and ensure the most powerful federal investigative agency in the world only engages in lawful operations.\u201d\n\n\u201cContinuing to meet new threats while tackling these challenges requires steady, committed leadership from someone who understands the stakes and has the humility to lead as a servant of the public, like Bob Mueller. Sadly for the American people, the current director does not meet these standards. Mr. Patel is the least qualified and most partisan FBI Director in our nation\u2019s history. He does not have the judgment, experience, or temperament of Director Mueller.\u201d\n\n\u201cBefore he was confirmed, Mr. Patel falsely claimed in public that the FBI \u2018was planning January 6 for a year.\u2019 He compiled an enemies list of public servants he called \u2018government gangsters\u2019 who he promised to target if he was confirmed as head of the FBI.\u201d\n\n\u201cDespite the warnings of Senate Democrats during his confirmation hearing, our Republican colleagues chose to ignore these facts to prioritize President Trump\u2019s retribution campaign over the safety of Americans. They joined on a partisan basis, confirming Director Patel to lead the FBI.\u201d\n\n\u201cUnder Mr. Patel\u2019s failed leadership, decades of efforts to modernize and reform the FBI are being undone, and the Bureau has been reshaped as a political weapon against President Trump\u2019s political enemies and a shield to protect the President and his MAGA loyalists\u2014not the American people. Director Patel has been the central figure pushing the so-called \u2018Grand Conspiracy,\u2019 diverting FBI resources to inane debunked conspiracy theories that the \u2018deep state\u2019 has been targeting President Trump since his first campaign.\u201d\n\n\u201cDirector Patel is also wasting FBI resources to relitigate the 2020 presidential election. How many times have nominees who are judges, respected professionals, professors come before this Committee and refused to acknowledge what every eighth-grader in America knows? President Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden by 7 million votes. That\u2019s simple. It\u2019s obvious. It\u2019s a matter of fact. Yet, these nominees refused to acknowledge that reality because this is part of the great conspiracy theory that Trump never loses anything.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo weaponize the FBI against the President\u2019s opponents, Director Patel has overseen a purge of thousands of law enforcement officials. From analysts and agents to the most senior leadership, the Bureau has been deprived of tens of thousands of years of cumulative experience.\u201d\n\n\u201cDirector Patel has installed MAGA loyalists as political appointees in key career positions. And he even imposed loyalty tests, requiring FBI officials to undergo polygraphs to say whether they ever criticize him.\u201d\n\n\u201cThousands of agents have been reassigned from their primary criminal and national security mission to immigration enforcement, with the number of FBI personnel working on immigration matters increasing by over 2,000 percent as of last September.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn total, over 9,000 FBI personnel\u201425 percent of the Bureau\u2014worked on immigration cases between January and September of last year. As part of this shift in resources, the Department of Justice shut down almost 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of the Trump Administration.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo replace the career professionals he purged, Director Patel has gutted hiring standards. Today will be his opportunity under oath to answer some basic questions about the standards being used for new FBI agents. In an interview in July, he claimed the FBI is \u2018losing too many qualified candidates to the rigors of the requirements from yesteryear.\u2019 What are those so-called obsolete requirements? According to a memo issued in June, the FBI has removed from its list of automatic hiring disqualifications theft from an employer, sex solicitation, and bestiality.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo add insult to injury, Director Patel is trying to take credit for the successful efforts of state and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime. The reality is that violent crime spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been steadily and consistently declining since 2022. Every member of this Committee knows that our state and local police \u2013 not the FBI \u2013 are primarily responsible for combatting violent crime. Don\u2019t believe me? Look at the data. Cities where the National Guard or other federal forces were not deployed had a 2025 drop in violent crime similar to the cities where they were deployed.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is misleading and offensive for this Administration \u2013 which has coddled January 6 rioters by giving them full, unconditional pardons from the President as one of his first acts in office. This Administration has ended the careers of thousands of professional FBI agents because they didn\u2019t meet some political test and blocked hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to local law enforcement\u2013 to claim credit for the work of our brave frontline police officers. That is not \u2018backing the blue\u2019 by any standard.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn fact, the cities where federal forces were deployed experienced widespread abuses of the constitutional rights of their residents\u2014including multiple lethal shootings of American citizens.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe FBI is charged with investigating deadly uses of force by federal agents, but it has turned its back on its duties under Director Patel. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security is now the primary investigator of whether its own poorly vetted and trained employees violated the law during the ill-conceived missions.\u201d\n\n\u201cDirector Patel has also played a key role in the Trump Administration\u2019s cover up of the Epstein files. Director Patel diverted more than a thousand FBI agents from their critical missions to work on 24-hour shifts reviewing every page of the Epstein files. These personnel were instructed to \u2018flag\u2019 any records in which President Trump\u2019s name was mentioned. That review ended in an unsigned memorandum from the Department of Justice and FBI simply claiming, \u2018there is no incriminating client list.\u2019 Director Patel has still not responded to our letter from more than a year ago asking about his personal role in this cover-up. But we now know that Director Patel reportedly joined a meeting in the White House Situation Room about how to protect the President from the fallout from this cover up of the Epstein files.\u201d\n\n\u201cDirector Patel failed to ensure the Trump Administration actually released, as they were required, everything about Epstein and his co-conspirators. This has come at the expense of the American people, who deserve transparency. And it has also been at the expense of the survivors of Epstein\u2019s abuse, who deserve justice and accountability.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo today, we find ourselves in a position where the FBI is expending immense resources to protect President Trump politically and deliver retribution to his enemies\u2014but is diverting resources away from protecting the safety, security, and rights of ordinary Americans and their families.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was proud to be part of bipartisan efforts over the many years to ensure the FBI protected both the security and freedom of the American people. And I\u2019m disappointed that this Committee has stood by since January 2025 as that work has been undone.\u201d\n\n\u201cI look forward to a day \u2013 hopefully in the near future \u2013 when this Committee will fulfill its duty to hold Director Patel accountable for his leadership.\u201d\n\nVideo of Durbin\u2019s opening statement is available here.\n\nAudio of Durbin\u2019s opening statement is available here.\n\nFootage of Durbin\u2019s opening statement is available here for TV Stations.\n\n-30-", 1, "2026-09-16T09:43:13Z", "2026-09-16T09:44:22Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/kash-patel-is-the-least-qualified-and-most-partisan-fbi-director-in-our-nations-history-durbin-says-in-opening-statement-in-senate-judiciary-committee-fbi-oversight-hearing"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6454379074275494, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}