Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard to Face Confirmation Hearings: What to Expect

The Senate will hold hearings on Jan. 30 to consider President Donald Trump’s nominees to lead the U.S. intelligence community and the FBI; key national security appointees that are likely to face intense scrutiny before they can proceed to a confirmation vote.

Trump has nominated Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence (DNI) to oversee the various U.S. intelligence and national security agencies, including the FBI.

Gabbard, who currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, represented Hawaii’s second congressional district from 2013 to 2021 as a Democrat.

Trump has nominated Kash Patel to serve as director of the FBI.

Patel has worked as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Security Division. During Trump’s first administration, Patel also worked as a counterterrorism adviser on the White House National Security Council and as a principal deputy in the ODNI in 2020 under then-acting DNI Richard Grenell.

After the first Trump administration, Patel hosted a show on EpochTV.

Government Weaponization

The political views of the next FBI director could be a key concern as the Senate considers Patel for the leadership role.

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Patel has also expressed concerns about corruption and politicization within the intelligence and national security community, including efforts specifically targeting Trump.

In a September 2024 interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Patel said if he were put in charge of the FBI, he‘d shut down its Washington headquarters on his first day and then reopen it the next day “as a museum of the ’deep state.’”

While Trump and other Republicans might see Patel as the change agent needed to counter their concerns about politicization within the FBI, some Democrats have raised concerns Patel would bring his own brand of political bias to the bureau.

Democrat Objections

Democrats have accused Patel of promoting views about the 2020 election and the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that amount to unfounded conspiracy theories. They’ve also accused him of promoting QAnon, a conspiracy theory movement focused on claims powerful individuals operate child sex trafficking rings and are involved in a secret cabal influencing the actions of the U.S. government.

In his letter, Blumenthal also asked Patel about his views on the QAnon movement and quoted Trump’s nominee as saying, “I disagree with a lot of what that movement says, but I agree with what a lot of that movement says.” Blumenthal has called on Patel to explain the specific ideas of the QAnon movement to which he ascribes during his confirmation hearing.

Domestic Surveillance

As she sits before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gabbard is likely to face questions about her views on the U.S. government’s domestic surveillance authorities, such as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Section 702 of FISA allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect the communications data of foreign nationals without a warrant and to collect communications between U.S. nationals and foreign nationals already under surveillance.

In a statement earlier this month, Gabbard signaled her views had changed over FISA Section 702. She said the provision has been sufficiently reformed since her time in office and now “must be safeguarded.”

Gabbard has previously spoken out in opposition to U.S. actions targeting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who relinquished power and fled to Russia last month. In 2017, she argued Trump should have waited for a full investigation on claims that Assad had ordered a chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province instead of immediately ordering missile strikes targeting the Assad government.

In a Jan. 29 Senate floor speech, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Gabbard of spreading false claims and acting in support of Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Given her history, it’s not unreasonable to ask if Ms. Gabbard would use the DNI job to push false intelligence for political ends,” Schumer said.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has refuted attacks on Gabbard’s loyalty to the United States.

“This is a woman who served 21 years in uniform, who’s passed five background checks. I reviewed the latest one last week. It’s clean as a whistle,” Cotton said in a Jan. 29 interview with Fox Business.

Gabbard and Patel will likely also face accusations that they aren’t qualified to serve in the positions Trump has nominated them for.

Despite her military service, Gabbard doesn’t have an extensive background in intelligence.

In his letter earlier this month, Blumenthal noted that former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr—Trump’s second attorney general—had written that Patel “had virtually no experience that would qualify [him] to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency.”