Kash Patel's Appointment as FBI Director Sparks Strong Reaction From Adam Schiff
Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who has long pushed the debunked claim that President Donald Trump had ties to Russia, voiced strong criticism of newly appointed FBI Director Kash Patel during a recent appearance on left-leaning MSNBC.
Speaking with host Lawrence O’Donnell, Schiff expressed concern that Patel’s leadership would further politicize the FBI — an agency Schiff claims was weaponized against Trump under President Joe Biden. The pair also speculated that Patel would be removed from his post under a future Democratic administration.
“With all this going on in the Senate floor, you did something that senators have never done before, to actually go out to the street, in this case outside the FBI headquarters today, to protest the confirmation by the Republican senators of an FBI director who was absolutely unimaginable as being qualified for any form of federal service prior to Donald Trump winning the presidency,” O’Donnell said, referring to Patel, a former federal prosecutor and national security advisor.
Schiff responded, “Yes, we stood outside the FBI headquarters to make a last plea against this — this terrible choice to be FBI director, Kash Patel. Kash Patel is the guy you go to when everybody else says, ‘No, I won’t do it. It’s too immoral, it’s too unethical, it’s too unlawful.’ He’s the guy. That’s why he was chosen. You rise to the level of your utter sycophancy in the Trump Administration.”
Schiff continued, “But here’s the thing. I’ve worked with the FBI for decades, ever since I was a federal prosecutor. They’re the premier law enforcement agency. Only in Trump world, a world in which you pardon hundreds of people for beating police officers, and then you purge the FBI agents that pursued them, only in that kind of world does a Kash Patel become FBI director.”
Schiff did not mention that on his way out of office, Biden issued a preemptive pardon to Patel. Additionally, Biden commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist convicted in 1975 of executing two FBI agents. Peltier is now serving the rest of his sentence under home confinement.
Schiff warned, “But that’s the upside-down, terrible world we’re living in at this moment. And Kash Patel has now been given a 10-year term as FBI director. I cannot imagine the damage that he can do if he’s given a decade to do it. And so we find ourselves in really uncharted waters. I think you’d have to go back to Herbert Hoover to find another FBI director so intent on using the powers of that position to go after president’s enemies.”
Despite the FBI's years-long investigation into Trump prior to his reelection, O’Donnell stated, “And what we’ve also seen here, obviously, is now the politicization of that position, because it is inconceivable, if there is a Democratic president sworn in four years from now, that that president wouldn’t immediately fire this FBI director.”
Schiff responded, “Yes, you know, we’ll — we’ll see whether this 10-year term, which was meant to insulate the office and allow an FBI director to go from one administration, continues serving into the next, a norm and more than a norm of practice that was changed when essentially, Chris Wray decided he needed to resign because it meant ultimate conflict with Donald Trump, and he felt that it was in the best service of the FBI not to continue as director.”
He added, “Look, when Donald Trump is gone, there’s a Democratic president. I can’t imagine they’re going to want to keep on someone as destructive as Kash Patel. But I couldn’t imagine, frankly, that we would be in this place to begin with. So, we’re in uncharted waters.”
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) suggested that Schiff’s outrage over Patel’s appointment stems from concerns about potential legal exposure related to his efforts to portray Trump as a Russian asset.