The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 12-10 to advance Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director.
Now that his vote has passed through the committee, his nomination will be up for a full Senate vote in the coming days.
Democrats successfully delayed the committee vote last week to force Patel, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, to testify a second time.
🚨BREAKING: Kash Patel’s nomination has moved forward from the Senate Judiciary Committee with a vote of 12-10. pic.twitter.com/Xb45yJcULC
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 13, 2025
Last week, Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn said during an interview with Fox News that the biggest reason Democrats like Sen. Adam Schiff of California and others “fear” Kash Patel to lead the FBI is because he knows their roles in perpetuating the “Russian collusion” hoax during Trump’s first term.
“I think, too they are very fearful of Kash Patel because Kash Patel knows what Adam Schiff and some of the others did with Russia collusion, and they know that he — knows the dirt on them, if you will, and I think they’re fearful of what he’s going to do and what he’s going to reveal and what he’s going to make known to the American people,” Blackburn told guest host Charlie Hurt on “Fox & Friends” Sunday.
“And they recognize that one thing Kash Patel is very devoted to is bringing transparency to what’s going on in Washington,” Hurt replied, which drew agreement from Blackburn.
“So to what degree with RFK Jr.. like Tulsi Gabbard do you think Democrats might hold it against them?” Hurt asked. “Because I think you’re right. I think that one of the things that really, really enraging them is that these are former Democrats, and they feel like they have to — I think it just drives them crazy and makes them so mad that these are Democrats who found a way to work on common sense solutions with President Trump.”
Blackburn responded: “You’re exactly right about that. It does make them angry, and so they’re wanting to punish them and the way they can punish them is to withhold their vote or to slow down their nomination. RFK Jr.. is going to do a great job at HHS and I tell you one thing.
“He is going to help us find these 300,000 children. I’ve been trying to find these kids since it was 75,000, and the Biden Administration has never responded to where these children are. RFK is going to get in there. He’s going to rework CMS with Dr. [Mehmet] Oz. He is going to work with [Dr.] Marty Makary to straighten out the FDA. He’s going to work with Dr. [Jay] Bhattacharyaat NIH,” Blackburn said.
“You’re going to see transparency. People want to know what really happened with COVID. I think we’re going to be able to find out what happened,” she added.
“Notably, Bhattacharya was a critic of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, Murthy v. Missouri, where he argued that he was ‘unfairly censored’ on social media by the government for his views on the issue,” notes the Consortium of Social Science Associations regarding the professor of health policy at Stanford University’s nomination by Trump.
“While the case gained national attention, it was ultimately unsuccessful in a 6-3 ruling,” the organization noted further.
Of his NIH nominee, Trump said, “Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives.”
A former federal prosecutor, Patel was appointed as senior counsel on counterterrorism for the House Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017 and later served as senior director of the Counterterrorism Directorate at the U.S. National Security Council in 2019.
He previously worked as a senior aide to then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) during Nunes’ tenure as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. In that role, Patel played a pivotal part in assisting Republicans with investigations into Trump and allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Patel played a key role in drafting the 2018 Nunes memo, which accused the FBI of misconduct in its application for a surveillance warrant on a Trump 2016 campaign aide.