Jan. 30 (UPI) — Kash Patel, President Donald Trump‘s nominee for lead the FBI, tried to clarify and distance himself from some of his most controversial statements during his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked Patel if he would push back on Trump if the president asked him to investigate someone on political grounds. Patel said he FBI agents would not be judged based on their cases.
“Every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard and no one will be terminated for case assignments,” Patel said, according to CBS News. “All FBI employees will be protected from political retribution.”
Patel tried to walk away from his past comments about an enemy’s list or his desire to seek political retribution and go after the previous FBI Director Christopher Wray and others.
“There is enough violent crime and enough national security threats to this country that the FBI is going to be busy going forward [trying to] prevent 100,000 overdoses, 100,000 rapes, and 17,000 homicides,” Patel told Chris Coons.
“[I have] no interest, no desire and will not if confirmed go backward. There will be no weaponization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI should I be confirmed as FBI director.”
Under questioning from Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Patel would not give her a yes or no answer on whether or not he believed President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, saying, “President Biden’s election was certified. He was sworn in and he served as the president of the United States.”
Patel did not completely disavow a comment that he would close the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. He had said he wanted to see agents in other regions throughout the country.
“I am fully committed to having that workforce go out into the interior of the country, where I live west of the Mississippi, and work with sheriff’s departments and local officers, because the American people deserve the resources, not in Washington, D.C., but in the rest of the country,” he said, according to the Washington Post.