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FBI Director Kash Patel Faces Senate Judiciary Committee. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 15, 2026 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's a live look at the Senate Judiciary Committee. FBI Director Kash Patel just sworn in for testimony. He will begin his opening statement very shortly.

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Good morning. Four days ago, our nation marked 25 years since terrorists attacked our homeland. September 11, 2001, and murdered 2,977 innocent people.

As a kid who grew up on Long Island, this resonated personally with me. Twenty five years later, we honor the lives taken that day. The first responders, survivors who carried its consequences.

And the thousands of FBI employees who answered the call in New York, at the Pentagon, in Pennsylvania and across the country. And the 34 FBI employees that have perished as a result of 9-11. Over 18 months ago, during my confirmation process, I told you that the FBI needed to be faster, more efficient, eliminate bureaucracy and reduce the weaponization of law enforcement completely.

Embrace technological advancements, engage with our partners and most importantly, let good cops be cops. Under President Trump's leadership, I'm proud to say we have not only accelerated that mission, we have delivered. This has been the most prolific run of crime reduction in the United States history, with the help of our great partners since the beginning of the Trump administration.

Here are a few numbers. And behind these stats are lives saved across the country. The FBI has arrested 5,400 violent criminals.

That's up 90 percent from the 18 month year period prior to that. That's making America safe. 3,100 violent gang members have been arrested by the FBI.

That's up 30 percent, making America safe. We've removed -- the FBI has removed 3,258 kilograms of fentanyl. That's enough to kill a quarter billion Americans.

That seizure is up eight percent by the FBI. That's making America safe. We have located, found and identified 11,081 child victims.

That is up twenty one percent. That is making America safe. This FBI has found and located more children than any FBI in the history of this country.

We have arrested 5,072 child predators and human traffickers. That's up 13 percent. This FBI is making America safe.

We, this FBI, have arrested 4,260 foreign terrorist organization. That's up 38 percent, including the fact that this FBI has stopped 1,100 criminal perpetrators from committing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. This FBI has executed 86 foreign transfers of custody, a 54 percent increase for perps captured overseas.

And we've extradited one 157 criminals from overseas, a 65 percent increase in just these last 18 months. In 2025, according to the Uniform Crime Report, we delivered the largest reduction in the murder rate in the history of America. We, the FBI, captured more than two and a half times the number of the top ten most wanted fugitives on the FBI's list from the prior administration.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, I'm proud to announce today and I hate to correct you. We haven't captured nine of the top ten most individuals on our list. We've captured ten.

Just this past weekend, we captured a thug down in Venezuela who is on our most wanted list and on the run for years. He has been captured, apprehended and is on his way back to the United States of America. That's ten of ten.

Nobody in the FBI history has done that. This year is just another example of how this FBI is capturing literally the worst of the worst all around the world. On top of that, we've captured six of the most wanted fraudsters around the world.

Taking the murder rate down 20 points is no easy effort. It requires a team lift, state, local and international partners. This includes results in cities like Baltimore, which retreats its lowest mid-year homicide numbers in recorded history this year.

In Memphis, we accomplished a 50 percent reduction in homicide for a city that had the highest per capita homicide rate in the country, thanks to the President's task force. And right here in Washington, D.C., we are on track to have the lowest homicide numbers since 1990. These events are not by accident.

The success means that this FBI has made America safer than it's ever been, and I'm proud to lead this agency. While doing all this great work for the American people and the world, the FBI prepared for the largest influx of tourists. Between the Club World Cup, two F1 races protected 300,000 Americans in the Olympics, and then across six America 250 events and this year's World Cup alone, we welcomed over 12 million visitors to the United States to attend these events.

Not one single security incident occurred at any single one of these events. No major security incidents. With our partners, this is how we keep America safe.

This is what happens when we back the blue, and this new FBI has been rebuilt to crush violent crime and defend the homeland. These are important changes. These are important results that happen due to important changes.

The changes are as follows. We established, for the first time ever, the Law Enforcement Partner Council, putting 1,000 agents back into the field, deployed more than 200 additional intel agents permanently into the field instead of Washington, D.C., and bolstered our JTTFs, all 56 of them. We added, for the first time ever, in one year, 2,750 task force officers to the FBI, putting trained men and women of law enforcement right in our offices.

We created the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center to turn intelligence into action against political violence and domestic terrorism, finally uniting 10 agencies for the first time in our history. That JMC, which is housed by this FBI, has already arrested more than 200 individuals, leading to 250 indictments. We built, for the first time, the Director's Strategic Information Center, our first ever joint operations center that modernized the FBI into sharing rapid intelligence that used to take hours, now takes less than one minute.

We established the nihilistic violent extremist fusion cell to bring our counterterrorism and child exploitation experts to target online predators who are preying on our children. This FBI has arrested 500 percent more predators online in this last 18 months than the prior 18 months before that. And through our 59 Homeland Security Task Forces, we created the first permanent presence of its kind across the nation to bring our state, local, federal, and intel partners into one location across this country to represent every single state.

These are real world changes. We saw great threats to our nation. We, and this FBI, led the effort to disrupt many plots, to include eight extremists who wanted to kill elected officials, civilians, and military members at the White House UFC Freedom 250 event.

We stopped it. We arrested five individuals last year for what we call the Pumpkin Day plot in Michigan, who wanted to blow up people in Michigan from three separate states. During a single month, our holiday month of December of last year, this FBI stopped four terrorist attacks in California, Texas, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

Separate terrorist attacks were stopped. And just this past weekend, this FBI stopped another ISIS-inspired attack in Pittsburgh, arresting an individual before he was able to go out and kill innocent civilians in the name of ISIS. These attacks did not happen because the FBI and our partners worked around the clock, found the threats, and stopped them.

Improving technology is something that is deeply important to me. And for the first time ever, we have expanded our overseas biometrical collection efforts with foreign partners to intercept targets before they happen. That means we're getting more facial recognition scans, more iris scans, and more information about predators and people and criminals who wish to do us harm and stopping them before they can do that.

Artificial intelligence, when used appropriately under the parameters of the law. When I got to the seat, this FBI had two test use cases for artificial intelligence. We just hit our 140th, that's a 605 percent increase since I've been in this seat, to process information to triage intelligence, analyze, and get this information out to our local partners.

[09:40:00]

Recently, for the first time, the FBI was mandated by congressional statute to have a zero, zero sample backlog at our DNA laboratory in Quantico. Over the last four years, that number grew to 1.8 million backlog in violation of federal statute. I'm proud to announce, as of just a couple of weeks ago, we have zeroed out that backlog because we used technology, AI, and improved equipment to make sure we capture these DNA profiles, put them in our CODIS database, and allow law enforcement partners to get after the threat.

We established the first ever counter-UAS training center at a Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, to make sure that the modern threat that the adversary uses to harm our way of life is countermanded by state and locals.

No FBI has ever built a schoolhouse for them. We did. And we have trained hundreds of law enforcement officers, which we deployed across the World Cup, to interdict 750 drones over 11 venues across the World Cup's 38 days.

That's 78 Super Bowls in 38 days, to put it in perspective, and not a single major security incident there. The cyber strategy, the first of its kind by President Trump, was issued. And underneath that, the FBI launched Operation Winter Shield and Operation Riptide to go on defense and offense for cyber criminals.

In our recent work, we launched 13 joint-sequence operations, resulting in 200 arrests, 6 extradition's, and froze $23 million in illegally frozen assets, and took down millions of networks on the dark web. More accountability is coming through this FBI. We saved this FBI $300 million in taxpayer funding by scuttling wasteless leases and duplicative contracts.

As I promised during my confirmation, the shift is outside of D.C., into the heartland of America, and I've reduced the footprint by one- third in Washington, D.C. And we're going to continue that effort.

In terms of transparency, as you know, I'm committed to transparency. In just the first 18 months, we've shared nearly 50,000 pages of documents with the Senate and the House. To put that in perspective, that's a 350 percent increase from the prior two directors combined in 11 years.

Foreign engagements are a critical part of this FBI's mission. Thanks to President Trump's leadership, this FBI is able to engage with foreign counterparts directly more than it's ever done before. I've single-handedly led more foreign engagements in the last 18 months than any 18-month tenure of an FBI director.

Since I took over, I've made over 100 calls to my foreign counterparts. To put that in perspective, in the last three-and-a-half years of my predecessor's administration, he made 20. Because of this engagement, it directly led to the execution and transfer of 86 foreign transfer of custodies, which the FBI executed overseas. That means 86 violent offenders, criminals, terrorists, narco-traffickers, gangbangers, and predators of children were brought back here for prosecution. On top of that, we saw a 54 percent increase in extradition's of individuals housed overseas, captured by this FBI, the same list.

Gangbangers, traffickers, terrorists, and those who want to do harm to our children and cybercriminals. These subjects are literally the worst of the worst, and this is what happens when you pick up the phone and call your partners.

Indian country is something that's deeply important to me and something that I didn't want to have forget. So Operation Steadfast Promise is the largest-ever surge to Indian country across our country. We have almost 500 FBI employees dedicated to this mission alone. That has never happened in the history of the FBI.

We also launched Voices Not Forgotten for Indian country. If you're a missing person, if you're a victim, if you have information regarding the most high-profile cases on Indian country, this FBI quadrupled the reward to at least $25,000, and it's going to be an enduring, continuing program. We have investigated more and opened more Indian country investigations during these last 18 months than any FBI before.

We've also opened up the Billings, Montana field office to add resources to the field. It's the first time we've opened up a new field office, full field office in the FBI, along with our new field office, our law enforcement attache office in New Zealand. So for the first time, this FBI has full law enforcement attache offices across all Five Eyes partnerships, the most important intelligence-sharing agreement there is.

The men and women of this FBI are delivering. We're stopping terrorist attacks, securing our major sporting events, defending our critical infrastructure, and rebuilding this institution around one standard, putting the mission first. With this committee's support, we'll continue to move forward, and we will never stop working for the American people. Thank you.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thank you, Director Patel. Now we have 10 minutes, time for each member.

In April 2026, I wrote eight major Internet companies to ensure NCMEC received enough data to hold online child predators accountable. NCMEC informed me last month that several companies have, quote, significantly improved, unquote, their child safety reporting. The FBI has assigned personnel to NCMEC to review online reports.

[09:45:00]

What improvements can these companies make so that the FBI can more effectively turn the tables and hunt down predators? PATEL: Thank you for your work. As you said, protecting our children is one of the greatest priorities we have. The National Center for Mission and Exploited Children, NCMEC, is a reliable partner, the leading partner of this FBI.

And thanks to your outreach to the private sector partners, these companies, a lot of these large social media companies, behind your calls, I called them as well, Mr. Chairman. And what they've done is allowed us to gain access to their intelligence and their databases for the first time ever in a secure fashion, specifically for their role of manhunting child predators and finding missing and exploited children. And as I stated in my opening, we have found and located over 11,000 children, that's up 20 some percent. That's never happened before.

So, thank you for that jolt in the arm that was needed in the private sector. And we're going to continue to expand those engagements and work with Congress to draft legislation so that this continuous flow of data can come in legally and lawfully and that law enforcement can use it.

GRASSLEY: Since that's a priority of mine, I'd like to have your team update me if there are companies that continue to refuse to provide the data necessary to safeguard children online.

PATEL: I will.

GRASSLEY: Department of Homeland Security has produced to my office letters of recommendation for two Afghan evacuees placed in the United States during the Biden administration. Department of Homeland Security has confirmed in writing that the government official who signed the letters was Morgan Killington. According to State Department emails, Killington is not a real person.

The Afghan evacuees charged with shooting two West Virginian National Guardsmen and the Afghan evacuees charged with funding ISIS-K received those letters of recommendation. Clearly, this is a sign of failed vetting. Is the FBI performing ongoing reviews to ensure that known or suspected terrorists didn't slip into our country or otherwise should have been barred from entry?

What has the FBI found up to date?

PATEL: We are working with our partners at DHS who lead this mission on vetting. We are providing all of our intelligence that has been collected on these individuals every time we encounter them at the border. The numbers of known or suspected terrorists encountered at the northern and southern border have dropped thanks to the securitization of the southern border and thanks to the presence of law enforcement and DHS on the northern border.

We're going to continue to work with our intel partners to reach back through and analyze Operation Allies Welcome after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and continue to vet those individuals to make sure we never have an event, a tragic terrorist attack like we witnessed here in the heart of Washington, D.C. last year in Thanksgiving.

GRASSLEY: At last year's oversight hearing, I raised concerns about FBI files being hidden in what's called prohibited access and restricted access cases. You noted last year that you'd produce records found in these types of cases, which you have done a good job of. Please update the committee on the steps you've taken to ensure these types of records are discoverable and that records can't be hidden from Congress, from the courts, or from the American people under Freedom of Information Act.

PATEL: Prohibitive cases, Mr. Chairman, were created just for that purpose, to evade transparency, to evade promulgation of FBI records that should be made available under the law and constitutional oversight. So we simply did the following. I eliminated prohibited cases.

There are no more prohibited cases at the FBI because we work together not only with our interagency partners but the legislative branch to inform the American public, when the law allows it, to produce records so that you can conduct constitutional oversight. So prohibited cases no longer exist. Those that were classified prohibited, that red label has been removed.

That compartmentation has been completely disbanded. And now we will work with your committee to continue producing records for what used to be called prohibitive cases for the sole purpose of keeping things a secret.

GRASSLEY: As I brought up in my opening statement, I have concerns about how Round River records were stored, managed, and classified. Round River was the operation that shut down certain government sources regarding the Biden family with apparently no justification. For example, some records included banner markings with Round River as a classification code.

[09:50:00]

That is highly unusual, if not outright improper, that you could have a Round River classification. What steps have you taken to investigate any improper classification of Round River records and hold people accountable?

PATEL: Thanks to your referral, Mr. Chairman, and shedding light on this, we looked at the classification processes surrounding this, quote-unquote, creation of a compartment called Round River. We discovered that there was no FBI policy to substantiate such a classification and that, in fact, it was basically made up. So now, working with you and your staff, we are committed to continue to produce, on top of the nearly 2,000 pages of documents on Round River that we've already produced, we will continue to produce documents around that.

And also, we are conducting an internal investigation through Inspection Division on the individuals who launched and codified this false and fake compartment. GRASSLEY: OK. According to an August 2026 Justice Department Inspector General report, FBI officials during Ray's tenure retaliated against an FBI employee named Jacob Mercer. These FBI officials are still employed.

At your nomination hearing, you committed to ensuring whistleblowers are protected from retaliation. What steps has the FBI taken to hold the retaliators accountable for their violation of law? And if nothing's been done, will you commit to updating the Committee on Accountability Measures?

PATEL: That is in the middle of an internal investigation. And as soon as I'm able to update the Committee, after working with our Department of Justice and partners, I will do so.

GRASSLEY: So you can't comment further?

PATEL: Not at this time, sir.

GRASSLEY: OK.

The Safer Skies Act granted long overdue authority to state and local law enforcement agencies to protect their communities from malicious drones. As of July 1st, the FBI had certified 46 eligible agencies to conduct drone medication, training a maximum of 16 officers per month. We can't get our law enforcement agencies certified to use these authorities fast enough.

What is the FBI doing to expand and expedite its counter-drone training capacity for eligible state and local law enforcement agencies?

PATEL: As you highlighted, Mr. Chairman, our state and local partners are critical to combat the counter-drone mission set. But the federal government provided no training or access at any level. So the FBI, under my leadership, stood up the first ever counter-UAS school.

It's called NCUTC down at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, where we've trained hundreds of law enforcement officers. That is a two-week class that goes continuously. We only paused it for the World Cup so that we could have all our counter-UAS experts in the field.

And what we've asked for Congress is increased funding so that we can triple the size of that school, allowing more state and local officers to come in and work with us and deploy them like we did during the World Cup on our ground intercept teams to cover down on 11 separate venues and take down 750 drones. We need more equipment, more tech, and we also need more bodies trained, so we need more money for that.

GRASSLEY: For almost a decade, I've exposed political weaponization during a crossfire hurricane, and you have as well. President Trump issued an executive order on each of his administration mandating declassification of crossfire hurricane records. Please describe the steps you've taken to ensure full declassification and whether other agencies like the CIA have created roadblocks for this declassification. This is my last question.

PATEL: The crossfire hurricane declassification at the FBI, at least what's under my control, Mr. Chairman, has been fully declassified. There is some information in there that I do not control because we do not own it, and we have vigorously worked with our intelligence community partners to declassify that.

We've produced the largest amount of crossfire hurricane documentation to the Congress ever, and we're going to continue -- sorry, and we're going to continue to do that, Mr. Chairman.

GRASSLEY: OK. Senator Durbin.

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL), RANKING MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Patel, one year ago, my home state of Illinois was experiencing the beginning of a ruthless, reckless, deadly campaign orchestrated by this administration known as Midway Blitz.

[09:55:00]

Masked federal agents armed with military-grade weapons and unmarked vehicles descended on Chicago and other communities, bashing in car windows, indiscriminately rounding up people, deploying chemical agents and shooting innocent people.

A Border Patrol agent shot U.S. citizen and Chicago native Marimar Martinez five times after sideswiping her vehicle. She survived. After Ms. Martinez was shot, DHS branded her as a domestic terrorist. A Border Patrol agent bragged about shooting her, and an FBI agent falsely claimed she chased a Border Patrol agent before she was shot.

Director Patel, after the shooting you took to social media, posted a video of a different collision that you said supported DHS. You said, quote, attack our law enforcement and this FBI will find you and bring you to justice, close quote.

DHS and FBI have since refused to correct the record. No charges filed against Ms. Martinez, who was shot five times by these agents. In another event, an ICE agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez shortly after he dropped his children off at school and daycare.

Publicly released video footage and the ICE agent's own statement contradict DHS claims that the ICE agent who shot him was, quote, dragged a significant distance and quote, feared for his life. In the past, the FBI would have swiftly responded to these shootings, gathering evidence and working with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to conduct a civil rights investigation. But not now.

This morning on your website of the FBI is the following. The FBI is the primary federal agency responsible for investigating possible violations of federal civil rights statutes. Director Patel, why has the FBI refused to investigate either of these shootings?

PATEL: We have not refused to investigate either of these shootings. These investigations are currently ongoing, and so I'm unable to comment on the nature of them. We are not the only agency involved since it involves multiple federal agencies.

So we have to work with our federal and state and local partners to collect the information and allow the Department of Justice to make whatever decision they deem appropriate.

DURBIN: You still stand behind the false statements you made in social media after Marimar Martinez was shot?

PATEL: Those false statements, according to you, are not false statements. They're clipped together to make it sound like I lied, and I didn't.

DURBIN: Well, I can tell you that she's never been charged with a crime after being shot five times and turning over the video for your approval and review, as well as other agencies.

PATEL: You want her to be charged for being shot?

DURGIN: Do you?

PATEL: That's what you just said.

DURGIN: Well, I can tell you --

PATEL: I'm not going to charge someone for being shot.

DURBIN: Let me quote what you said. Attack our law enforcement and the FBI will find you and bring you to justice.

PATEL: Yes.

DURBIN: Were you bringing her to justice by shooting her five times?

PATEL: We didn't shoot her.

DURBIN: The federal government did, and you're responsible for determining whether there's any violation of civil rights statutes, and you refused to do so. Unfortunately, giving a blank slate to these agents is not an encouragement for good conduct, and you know that as well as I do.

Let me ask you on a separate question. According to a memo issued this June, the FBI has lowered its hiring standards by dropping automatic disqualification for applicants who have stolen from employers, paid for sex, or engaged in bestiality.

In July, you claimed the FBI is, quote, losing too many qualified candidates to the rigors of requirements from yesteryear. Director Patel, do you believe those who have previously stolen from employers, solicited sex, are engaged in bestiality, are qualified candidates that the FBI is losing?

PATEL: Thank you for bringing this up so we can get to the truth of the matter. What we did was we did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked. We did not want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you if you are a victim of these awful, heinous acts.

They still have to go to the same rigorous standards and application process. And on your other note, regarding our standards, our standards have never been higher. We've just hired on 307 former law enforcement and military officers.

We've just hired on 470 individuals who have advanced degrees, and we've just hired on 448 individuals who are fluent in multiple foreign languages. So we have not changed the standards. We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country --

DURBIN: Listen to this.

PATEL: -- who may be most motivated to serve our FBI workforce.

DURBIN: Listen to this. He's no longer protecting those who've been charged with bestiality. He's protecting those who are victims. Just turned it upside down.

PATEL: No, you did.

DURBIN: No, you did, sir.

PATEL: Because you lied.

DURBIN: No, I can just tell you what I'm reading to you is you dropped automatic disqualification for applicants who have been engaged in bestiality. Not victims of bestiality. Applicants who have engaged.

Do you disagree with that?

PATEL: Applicants who have engaged in bestiality.