WASHINGTON, D.C. –Today, U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) spoke on the Senate Floor before voting against Kash Patel, President Trump’s pick to serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Senator Welch expressed his opposition to Mr. Patel and raised concerns about Mr. Patel’s involvement and actions enabling President Trump’s firing spree of career FBI agents and officials, his unwillingness to stand up against President Trump’s demands, and his perpetuation of Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election.
“Mr. Patel is not the person to lead the FBI. And my hope is that all of us should consider what Mr. Patel will do. He’s going to use the power of the FBI to go after all those in government, those in the media, and those across the country he doesn’t agree with. He cannot serve as the next director of the FBI,” said Senator Welch.
Watch the Senator’s full remarks below:
Read key excerpts from Senator Welch’s remarks here:
“I believe that this country and Congress is in the midst of a slow-moving but rapidly accelerating constitutional crisis. This is real, and we can ignore it or see it. It began most visibly, of course, on January 6, 2021, when two norms of this republic—the peaceful transfer of power and the renunciation of violence to affect the outcome of a vote count and certification— were breached. And where many members of the House and Senate also voted against certifying the election of the person chosen by the people in their own states. The president continues to say that the election was stolen, and he has coached his nominees to embrace the Big Lie.
“The first month of the Trump Administration has shown a contempt for the Constitution; an acceptance of lawlessness that is dangerous to the future of our republic. President Trump’s election denialism was only an early sign of his disregard for the norms and requirements of the Constitution. Now, empowered in a second term by a Congress and a Judiciary which refused to assert their independence, Mr. Trump has enacted executive order after executive order to dismantle our institutions. He doesn’t have the authority to do what he’s doing.”
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“It is my view that this administration is showing maximum contempt for core constitutional values, including, most importantly, the separation of powers. This is not about what the president’s agenda is. This is about his disregard about the limits that apply to each branch of government. And we have a dilemma. There are many in Congress that are fully in support of President Trump’s policies. That’s his right to pursue them, any member’s right to support them.
“But it has to be that we accept our unique responsibility—each of the 100 U.S. Senators—that we have to guarantee that in pursuit of those policies, it is done within constitutional boundaries. That is the glue that has held this country together through thick and thin for nearly 250 years. You know, this is not just talk about civic aspiration. It’s a recognition that the separation of powers, that the system of checks and balances—we’re custodians of that, each of us here—that the concept of the executive’s ambition should be matched with the ambition of the legislature. That’s what’s held us together through the turmoil of our own history.”
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“I’m voting against Mr. Patel, primarily, but not exclusively, because he’s clearly an instrument in [Trump’s] effort to continue eroding the precepts of the Constitution on separation of powers. And I urge all my fellow Senators, Republican and Democrat, to embrace the responsibility we have to assert our responsibility and authority as a coequal branch…
“I’m regarding what President Trump has been doing in his first month in office as an illegal rampage—it’s a rampage of illegality. He’s showing a contempt for Congress and a contempt for the United States Judiciary. Mr. Patel has signed onto that agenda. He isn’t just someone who will be forced to participate in the president’s campaign of retribution, he’s an active participant. He’s got his ‘enemies list.’ We know this because his own words said what the FBI—’what was the FBI doing planning January 6 for a year?’ No basis for that, other than to set up the attack on the good men and women of the FBI.”
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This morning, Senator Welch joined Senate Judiciary Democrats outside of the FBI Headquarters building in Washington, D.C. to call on their Republican colleagues to block the nomination of Mr. Patel on the Senate Floor.
Senator Welch has expressed reservations about Mr. Patel’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee. During Mr. Patel’s confirmation hearing, Senator Welch grilled the nominee about his refusal to acknowledge that President Biden won the 2020 Presidential Election and stressed the importance of combatting any attempt to weaponize the Justice Department and the FBI under the Trump Administration. Last week, Senator Welch reacted to reports that Mr. Patel has been personally involved in the Trump Administration’s ongoing efforts to target and fire career FBI agents and officials. Under oath, Mr. Patel told Senator Welch he had no recollection of the purge at the FBI.
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