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Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, as the leading law enforcement Agency in our country, the FBI does critical work every single day to keep our Nation, to keep us, safe--from counterterrorism and countertrafficking to fighting cyberattacks and so much more. At a time of global instability, FBI agents are working day in and day out to protect us from threats, both foreign and domestic.

But today, the FBI and the Department of Justice face a crisis caused not by any outside threat but rather by the men and women tasked with leading these Agencies. Instead of focusing on potential attacks, hacks, or violent criminal enterprises, we have a DOJ and FBI that have been turned inward on themselves.

In just the last month, dozens of senior career FBI and DOJ employees have been purged--purged--en masse by President Trump and his administration. Hundreds of thousands of the prosecutors and FBI special agents and analysts may be next--in fact, I shouldn't use the word ``may,'' will be next. Purging hard-working and dedicated civil servants does nothing to make us safe; in fact, it does just the opposite.

Attorney General Bondi recently announced the creation of a ``weaponization working group.'' It only continues this trend. Through this working group, she is doing what she told us she would not do in her confirmation hearings. She is ``investigating the investigators'' with this working group, and I expect will be prosecuting the prosecutors.

I fear what a DOJ and FBI focused inward on themselves means for the safety and security of our Nation, which brings me to Kash Patel, President Trump's nominee to lead the FBI. For many reasons, Mr. Patel is not the man to answer the many challenges of the moment. Mr. Patel spent his nomination hearings avoiding every hard question, not even the hard questions. I asked him, for example, if he would investigate people--60 people--on his ``deep state'' list. He would not say no. And it was pretty clear, this list--and I suspect it is growing--but the 60-person list are all the people who are not sufficiently loyal to President Trump. So it has many, many Republicans on the list, and what the heck is he planning do with that list? Believe me, it is not because they are going to be commended for the work that they did.

I asked him in his hearings whether he profited from selling supplements to detox the COVID-19 vaccine, supplements he promoted on his social media channels. He did not answer.

I asked him if Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. He would not answer.

He claimed not to know an anti-Semitic extremist named Stew Peters, despite the fact that he appeared on this person's program eight times.

He tried to claim no involvement with the January 6 Choir made up of inmates--made up of inmates--serving in prison for their part in the violent insurrection on January 6 at the Capitol.

And, of course, we all know all of these inmates have been pardoned en masse by the President. He claimed no involvement with this choir despite promoting them and hawking their merchandise for years.

He was unwilling to provide any details about his grand jury testimony related to the January 6 insurrection--testimony he had to be compelled to give after taking the Fifth Amendment. Of course, Mr. Patel has the same rights as any American to plead the Fifth. But we have an equal right to ask him, as the nominee for the FBI Director, no less, why he did so and to learn what his ultimate testimony was.

The one thing Mr. Patel did testify to was in response to a question from Senator Booker about whether he was ``aware of any plans or discussions to punish . . . FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations,'' and his response was that he was ``not aware of that.''

We have since learned of credible evidence that Mr. Patel perjured himself with that statement.

Mr. Patel is totally unfit to lead the FBI. It is clear he won't discern fact from fiction and that he will be loyal to Donald Trump and Donald Trump only, which means total disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law.

Ours is a nation of laws. Mr. Patel's nomination is one more indication that Donald Trump fancies himself above the law, even referring to himself as ``King'' in a recent tweet, and will weaponize the law however he wants to, and that is to advance his political agenda.

Mr. Patel's is a dangerous nomination that will make our country less safe, less secure, and will erode America's trust in the FBI.

Mr. President, our administrative Agencies--and, certainly, the Department of Justice and the FBI--do not exist to be used as tools for retribution by Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, or Kash Patel, but that is exactly what is happening with our Agencies and the firing and the purging of thousands of people who are doing the job of the people.

What can we be thinking in supporting Mr. Patel to lead an Agency that has the tools to spy and go after all the people that he doesn't like?

I urge my colleagues to vote no on this nomination.

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