FBI’s Patel dodges questions on election interference at rambunctious US Senate hearing

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.

“I don't have much to say. This guy called me a thug. It's kind of ironic. He's running for president of the United States. He just got his 20-second ad campaign,” Patel said. “Next.”

Booker told NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” in March that he’s “definitely not ruling out” a presidential run in 2028.

Grassley thanked Patel for “putting up with what you had to put up with.”

“And I'm sorry I couldn't control some of them more than I already did,” he said.

Democratic probes promised

Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, warned a Democratic-led Congress would investigate the FBI’s actions under Patel’s leadership. 

That includes the alleged firing of agents who worked on investigations of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack and President Donald Trump’s alleged hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago following his first term.

“The FBI is being sued for wrongful termination. I will remind you, director, because you probably need reminding, that while this Congress is not going to investigate the wrongful termination of potentially hundreds of agents for working on properly predicated investigations, the next Congress will,” Schiff said.

The panel’s Republicans praised Patel for his record at the agency.

Patel said his agency “has made America safer than it's ever been.”

“Across six America 250 events and this year's World Cup alone, we welcomed over 12 million visitors to the United States to attend these events. Not one single incident occurred at any single one of these events,” he said during his opening remarks.

Bizarre exchange over FBI hiring

One topic that drew scrutiny from both sides of the aisle was a recent reported change at the FBI that lifted previous disqualifying behavior for special agent recruits, including theft from employers, prostitution and bestiality.

Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said he understands “the game” of Democrats broaching the subject of bestiality to “make you look bad,” but said he was also “trying to get to the bottom of this.”

In a bizarre and unexpected exchange for a Senate hearing, Kennedy asked hypothetically, “If ‘Joe’ participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human, don't you think he ought to be disqualified?” 

“If he voluntarily did it, sure,” Patel said.

Kennedy interrupted, “Okay, how do you involuntarily do that?”

Patel said some people are trafficked and forced into “degrading acts of all kind,” but later want to join the FBI.

“But you're not telling us today that if a human being (voluntarily) had sex with an animal that they can still be an FBI agent?” Kennedy asked.

“No,” Patel responded.

“In fact, they ought to be in jail, right?” Kennedy shot back.

“They all are,” Patel said.

“Yea, well, okay,” Kennedy said.

FBI at polling locations

On the topic of an FBI presence at the polls on Nov. 3, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Patel he was "dissatisfied that you are unable to give us an unequivocal, clear, unambiguous commitment that the FBI will be kept out of election interference.”

“You are involved in seven voter-related subpoenas issued to the Nevada Secretary of State's office, you were involved in seizure of election records from Fulton County, Georgia. Clearly, the FBI has been involved in possible election interference,” Blumenthal said.

FBI agents seized 2020 presidential election ballots in Fulton County in January.

The Trump administration served voter-related subpoenas earlier this month in Nevada.

Welch told Patel he’s concerned about what he’s “willing to do for the president in this year's midterm elections that the president is already saying are going to be rigged if he loses.”

Moments later Welch asked, “Last month, Congressman and Michigan gubernatorial candidate John James said to podcaster Benny Johnson, quote, ‘I've already had a good conversation with my friend Kash Patel, who has said already that the FBI will have a presence leading up to Election Day in Michigan, in both West Michigan and Southeast Michigan.’ Is that true?”

“We have an election crimes community coordinator in all 56 field offices, so you bet we're going to have them there and manning the posts for election interference,” Patel said.

The exchange continued for several minutes, growing more contentious, as Welch pressed for an answer and Patel said he would not take part in a “charade of lies.”

“Then why are you being such a panderer to President Trump, who's still claiming that he won the 2020 election, and who has said the only way Democrats can win in 2026 is if they cheat. Do you believe that?” Welch replied.

“I believe in the rule of law. … I want to know how your wealth increased 4,000% since you became a United States senator?” Patel shot back.

“Let’s knock it off,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, chimed in after taking over the hearing for Grassley.

AI hacking

Sen. Josh Hawley, who has shown skepticism of the skyrocketing growth of artificial intelligence, used part of his time to ask how the FBI will handle illegal hacking incidents by AI agents.

Several incidents this summer involved AI agents hacking into other systems, including OpenAI agents that broke into tech company Hugging Face, without explicit instructions to do so.

The recent explosive development of AI has dominated headlines and conversations on Capitol Hill in recent days after top tech executives warned development was moving too quickly to adhere to safety guardrails. Congress has yet to pass overarching AI regulations.

“What's the role here for the bureau? How, how do you wrap your head around these kind of crimes?” asked Hawley, a Missouri Republican.

“This is a great question. It's literally the new frontier, and nobody's really talking about it, so thank you. So a couple things: The president has issued his AI directive on what the government can and can't use, and that's the right first step because you don't want 77 different large language models,” Patel said.

The FBI, he said, has reviewed 140 “test case models” to measure their capabilities and “make sure they are cooperating and following underlying federal statutes.”

“What we need to do on a resource basis is go after the people that created these models that are going rogue,” Patel said.