Irritated Senators Ask Clueless Director Patel: Where's The FBI Budget?
FBI Director Kash Patel testifying at Senate confirmation hearings on January 30, 2025
If you thought FBI Director Kash Patel had any competence whatsoever, think again.
Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Patel was unable to provide a timeline for when his department’s budget—which was required by law to be submitted more than a week ago—would finally be delivered to Congress.
Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland noted that the hearing was essentially pointless, since Patel failed to provide critical spending and budget documents.
“How do we, as Congress, do our budget and our work without that request and without the spend plan?” Murray said, calling Patel’s lack of preparedness “insufficient and deeply disturbing.”
Patel’s signature dunderheaded combativeness was on full display during a tense exchange with Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who asked whether people deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 have the constitutional right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.
“It’s not for me to call the balls and strikes on it,” Patel responded.
“You haven't read the Constitution?” Merkley asked, citing the Supreme Court ruling in Reno v. Flores as part of the settled law on the matter.
“It concerns me that you're not familiar with the core concept of due process applying to all persons as written in black and white in the Constitution,” Merkley added.
After the hearing, Murray called out Patel’s incompetence and the threat it poses to the United States.
“Kash Patel, the conspiracy theorist that Republicans made FBI Director, came to a Senate hearing on the budget—with NO budget, NO timeline, and NO clue. It's downright incompetent, and it's making America less safe. We need serious leadership at the FBI,” she wrote on Bluesky.
No budget? Check! Equivocating statements about the Constitution? Check! Seems like Patel’s competence is perfectly in line with the rest of the Trump administration.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
- Grift Alert! Trump Appointees Pushed Scam Supplements ›
- Russian TV Ecstatic Over Patel, Who 'Will Quickly Dismantle America' ›
- FBI And NOAA Bosses Order Staff To Ignore Directive From Musk ›
