GOP Sens Support Patel as 'Type of Change' Needed at FBI

Despite talk of Democrats' obstruction of President-elect Donald Trump's pick of Kash Patel to be the next FBI director, Republican Senate leaders are backing Patel as a much-needed agent of change.

"I've encouraged President Trump to bring Kash Patel to the table for precisely this reason," Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., told NBC News' "Meet the Press."

"He represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI."

"There are serious problems at the FBI," he added. "The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping change, and Kash Patel is just the type of person to do it."

Hagerty pointed to the FBI's failure to properly vet President Joe Biden's nominees that got confirmed under more controversial concerns.

"This entire agency needs to be cleaned out," Hagerty told NBC. "It's not doing its job."

Also, the FBI has not been a fair arbiter with regard to Trump, he added.

"If you look at what happened, the politicization that took place in 2016, when senior leaders of the FBI collaborated and conspired to try to keep President Trump out of office," Hagerty said. "And when he came into office, they put together this fake Russiagate investigation that hindered the Trump administration for the first several years.

"Look at 2020, look at what happened there with the faked fake Hunter Biden story that the FBI leadership worked together with Big Tech to censor the Hunter Biden laptop. That allowed President Biden to basically fool the American public when coming to office."

House Speaker Mike Johnson, though he does not get to vote on Patel, also threw his support behind him, calling Patel an “America first patriot.”

In a post on X replying to the announcement, Johnson congratulated Patel.

“Kash Patel has extensive experience in national security and intelligence,” he wrote. “He is an America first patriot who will bring much-needed change and transparency to the FBI.”

Trump can expect full Democrat opposition to many of his nominees, as they have in the past, but GOP senators need to be fully onboard, too, to get them confirmed.

"Kash Patel must prove to Congress he will reform & restore public trust in FBI," past and potential future Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote on X, saying, despite being a former Trump pick to lead the FBI, Wray has "failed."

"Chris Wray has failed at fundamental duties of FBI Dir," he wrote. "He's showed disdain for cong oversight & hasn't lived up to his promises. It's time 2 chart a new course 4 TRANSPARENCY +ACCOUNTABILITY at FBI."

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., called Wray "a very good man" and said he did not "have any complaints about the way that he's done his job right now," but it is Trump's Justice Department and FBI.

"Every president wants people that are loyal to themselves," Rounds told ABC's "This Week," adding a president has "the right to make nominations."

"We'll see what his process is, and whether he actually makes that nomination — and then, if he does, just as with anybody who is nominated for one of these positions, once they've been nominated by the president, then the president gets, you know, the benefit of the doubt on the nomination, but we still go through a process.

"That can be sometimes advice, sometimes it is consent."

During Trump's first term, Patel was an aide to the then-Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before taking roles at the White House National Security Council and later at the Defense Department.

Patel "played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution,” Trump wrote Saturday night in a social media post.

Patel has called for a "comprehensive housecleaning" of government workers who are disloyal to Trump.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Patel was a "very strong nominee" and he thought Patel would be confirmed.

"All of the weeping and gnashing of teeth, all the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the FBI," Cruz told CBS' "Face the Nation."

Information from The Associated Press was used to compile this report.