WASHINGTON — Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democratic senator, accused President Donald Trump’s nominee to be FBI director, longtime loyalist Kash Patel, of directing a purge of FBI officials through senior White House and Justice Department officials as a “private citizen with no role in government” as he awaits a Senate confirmation vote.


What You Need To Know

  • Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democratic senator, accused President Donald Trump’s nominee to be FBI director, longtime loyalist Kash Patel, of directing a purge of FBI officials through senior White House and Department of Justice officials as a “private citizen with no role in government” as he awaits a Senate confirmation vote
  • “Multiple whistleblowers have disclosed to my staff highly credible information indicating that Mr. Kash Patel has been personally directing the ongoing purge of senior law enforcement officials at the FBI,” Durbin said
  • Officials named by Durbin as part of this alleged plot include White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and acting deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney
  • If confirmed, Patel will begin a 10-year term atop the United States’ powerful federal law enforcement and domestic surveillance agency after promising to lead the president’s vengeful agenda against his political foes

If confirmed, Patel would begin a 10-year term atop the United States’ powerful federal law enforcement and domestic surveillance agency after promising to lead the president’s vengeful agenda against his political foes.

Durbin laid out the accusations, based on “highly credible information from multiple sources,” in a letter Tuesday to the Justice Department’s inspector general and in a speech on the Senate floor. He accused numerous senior officials of helping Patel orchestrate a “potentially illegal” scheme to oust a list of FBI officials deemed to be enemies of the president. Officials named by Durbin as part of this alleged plot include White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney.

“Multiple whistleblowers have disclosed to my staff highly credible information indicating that Mr. Kash Patel has been personally directing the ongoing purge of senior law enforcement officials at the FBI,” Durbin said on the Senate floor. “Mr. Patel, at this moment in time, is not on any public payroll, nor does he have any authority by our government.”

Durbin then read from “contemporaneous notes” his staff obtained from meetings between acting leaders at the Justice Department and FBI on Jan. 29, one day before Patel was at the Capitol for a confirmation hearing with the Judiciary Committee. In a meeting of FBI officials, acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll and acting FBI Deputy Director Robert Kissane relayed that the administration wanted a series of senior officials to resign or be fired, and a list of targets was shared with “multiple FBI leaders,” according to Durbin. Driscoll and Kissane, both career FBI agents, resisted the directive from the White House and Bove, multiple outlets reported at the time.

The list was in the possession of a group of Patel’s allies on what Durbin described as the “director’s advisory team” and a “group of political appointees who were brought in to prepare for Mr. Patel’s arrival” after his yet-to-be-scheduled Senate confirmation vote.

Earlier in the day on Jan. 29, Bove met with FBI leadership and relayed that “he received multiple calls from Miller,” one of Trump’s closest aides, on the night of the 28th and that “Miller was pressuring him because Mr. Patel wanted the FBI to remove targeted employees faster, as DOJ had already done with prosecutors,” Durbin wrote in the letter to the Justice Department’s inspector general. A week into his second term, Trump’s Justice Department fired more than a dozen officials who worked on the federal prosecutions of the president. The FBI later began screening employees who worked on investigating cases connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

“KP wants movement at FBI, reciprocal actions for DOJ,” the notes from the first meeting on Jan. 29 read, according to Durbin, who alleged “KP” was initials for Patel. According to the Illinois Democrat, Patel was relaying orders through Miller at the White House who would then pass instructions on to Bove at the Justice Department. 

The following day, Jan. 30, Patel testified in defense of his nomination before the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, which holds oversight over the Justice Department and FBI and on which Durbin is the top Democrat. Durbin said Patel at his hearing “may have committed perjury” when he told Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., that he was “not aware” of any plans or discussions to punish or terminate FBI agents and officials associated with the criminal investigations into Trump over the last four years nor any personnel changes ongoing at the FBI at the time of his testimony. Lying under oath to Congress is a federal crime.

“If these whistleblower allegations are true, just two days before, Stephen Miller, at Mr. Patel’s direction, had ordered DOJ leadership not just to terminate a specific list of officials, but to speed up those terminations,” Durbin said. “Mr. Patel seems to be unable to wait for Senate confirmation to carry out retribution against his perceived political enemies.”

“This speaks directly to the fact that Mr. Patel is not fit to be entrusted with government authority, which is evident to anyone who has seriously reviewed his record,” Durbin added.

A week after Bove spoke with acting FBI leadership, he accused them in a memo of “insubordination” for apparently resisting his request to single out “the core team” behind the Jan. 6 investigations, which resulted in more than 1,500 prosecutions.

The White House, Justice Department and FBI did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday. Patel did not respond to a request for comment through his foundation but shared a post on X by Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that labeled Durbin's allegation "nothing more than heresay" and doesn't "hold a candle to Patel's character [and] credibility" while touting endorsements of Patel's nomination by law enforcement unions and associations. 

A former national security official during Trump’s first term, Patel has echoed the president’s promises to prosecute and imprison political enemies and has publicly detailed how a second Trump administration could purge the government of the “deep state.” In his 2023 book “Government Gangsters,” he made a list of targets, which included senior Democrats, current and former leaders of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, lower-level staffers, “the entire fake news mafia press corps,” and former Trump staffers and allies who defected.

Currently Patel is scheduled for a Judiciary Committee vote Thursday, which would send his nomination to the whole Senate for a vote. Last week, Democrats on the committee urged Grassley, the committee's Republican chair, to bring Patel back for a second hearing, but Grassley did not oblige. Republicans hold a 53-seat majority in the Senate and have yet to reject one of Trump’s nominees, but Durbin urged his GOP colleagues to “take these allegations seriously and at least pause for a moment.”

“Consider whether Kash Patel is the man you want to put in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 10 years — 10 years,” Durbin said. “If this man is so fast and loose with the truth before our committee now, imagine what he will do if given the protection of office.”