Washington: The Republican-led US Senate on Thursday voted in favour of limiting debate on the nomination of Kash Patel to head the FBI, the country’s premier investigating agency, clearing the way for a likely confirmation later in the day.
The Senate voted 51 to 47 to end the debate and move straight to a floor vote on confirmation.
He will succeed Christopher Wray for a term that is supposed to last 10 years but hasn’t in recent years. Two of the immediate predecessors did not complete their tenure.
Wray resigned on Trump’s election with two years still left of his 10-year term and his predecessor James Comey had completed only four of his 10 years when he was fired by Trump in 2017.
Patel will become the agency’s first Indian-descent Director. Indeed, he will also become its first Asian-descent leader, securing his place in history.
The Republican-led Senate is expected to confirm him in a party-line vote, as it did to clear a procedural step on Tuesday. The chamber has so far confirmed every one of President Trump’s nominees to his cabinet and other senior positions, including the two that were most controversial, Tulsi Gabbard, as Director of National Intelligence, and Robert F Kennedy Jr, to head the Health and Human Services.
Republican senators who had misgivings about Patel and other controversial nominees have all fallen in line with the president and confirmed every one of his nominees. Matt Getz, who was nominated to head the justice department as attorney general. He was forced to withdraw his nomination when it became clear a number of Republican senators remained unconvinced of his fitness for the job in the light of a barrage of negative news reports about his sexual relations with minors.
Patel’s nomination has been opposed by Democrats, who subjected him to intense grilling during his confirmation hearing, on his views on the January 6 rioters and the incident, and comments and remarks, including his critical remarks about the agency he has been nominated to head.
Patel is a former public defender who has seen a meteoric rise in the power structure of Washington DC in recent years, rising up to be the Chief of Staff at the Department of Defence and Deputy Director of National Intelligence in President Trump’s first term. Patel has now been nominated to head the FBI, an agency that investigated Trump for alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office in 2021 and for trying to overturn the 2020 election defeat to President Joe Biden.
(IANS)
