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Senate Republican leaders are signaling they’re comfortable with President-elect Donald Trump dismissing FBI Director Christopher Wray before his 10-year term expires.
And GOP senators sound open to confirming Trump loyalist Kash Patel, a vocal critic of a bureau he claims has been captured by the “deep state,” as its next leader.
Republican senators said they still need to look more deeply into Patel, a former House and Trump administration staffer who has talked about investigating journalists and has condemned past FBI investigations into Trump. But there were few warning lights from the Senate’s incoming Republican majority on Monday night about Trump’s weekend choice of Patel.
“The president, they’ve got to be comfortable with their director of the FBI. Those sorts of changes aren’t completely without precedent. So I defer to the president,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who serves on the party’s extended leadership team, told Semafor. “I’m going in with a presumptively positive opinion about [Patel].”
That’s not to say Republicans are overjoyed with Patel’s ascension. Several made clear they had preferred to see former Rep. Mike Rogers, a former Intelligence Committee chairman and FBI agent, in the role. Dan Scavino, a top Trump aide, burst that bubble late last month, making it clear Trump was not predisposed to listen to Republicans who are craving a more traditional FBI director.
That leaves GOP senators with little choice but to put Patel through the paces of Senate vetting, confirmation hearing and one-on-one meetings.
“He’s like all the other nominees, he’ll get a process and confirmation hearing and vetting and everything else. They’ll all have to go through it,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the incoming majority leader, said of Patel. “My job is to make sure that the nominees have a thorough and fair process, and ultimately our members are going to decide.”
While facing at least three other potentially polarizing Trump Cabinet nominees, Republicans have little bandwidth to resist Trump’s plans to dump Wray – chosen by the president-elect in 2017 to replace James Comey, another Trump foil.
Some Republicans think the idea of a 10-year term atop the FBI might be antiquated anyway.
“It’s fair. And I think it will become the custom and usage,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Semafor of presidents bringing in their own FBI director. “I think It’ll become a norm.”
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No one is guaranteeing Patel’s confirmation yet — “that’s why God made confirmation hearings,” cracked Kennedy. Still, senior GOP senators’ responses on Monday were a stark departure from their evident trepidation about Trump’s brief nomination of Matt Gaetz as his attorney general. Gaetz withdrew after about a week.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the incoming No. 4 leader, said she’s OK with Trump bringing in a director that he’s comfortable with: “The president’s allowed to have his appointees.” And Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who last month pointedly noted that FBI directors have a 10-year term, told Semafor that it’s “not my choice.”
“I’ll do my job, which [is], if there is a new nominee, we’ll vet them and go through the normal confirmation process,” Cornyn said.
Burgess’s view
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., defended Wray on Sunday, and few Republicans criticized him on Monday. But there’s a sense within the party that the die is cast on the FBI director and that Trump should get some deference on the pick given his grievances against the agency.
Still, Patel won’t just waltz into a Senate confirmation vote. Democrats are sure to challenge him as a Trump-planted political operative during his confirmation hearings; Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin called Patel an “unqualified loyalist” after his nomination.