WASHINGTON — Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee for a 10-year term as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, distanced himself on Thursday from Trump’s sweeping pardon of Jan. 6 rioters, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee he did not think violent rioters who assaulted law enforcement deserved a break.
“I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I have included in that group specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on January 6,” Patel said during his confirmation hearing. “I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement.”
Patel’s comments highlighted a fissure within the Republican party, and even within Trump’s own administration, over the president’s decision to pardon virtually all Jan. 6 defendants except a handful whose sentences were commuted. Those getting pardons included people who assaulted officers and those who were armed with weapons firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, batons, bear spray, and much more.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said during the hearing that he disagreed with Trump’s pardons of violent Jan. 6 rioters, and that he’d been telling officers he encountered at security entrances around the Capitol the same.
“I’ve been thanking these Capitol Police officers, and I told them I thought, I actually thought that the pardons of people who did harm to police officers sucked,” Tillis said. “I respectfully disagree with the President or whoever likely gave him advice.”
Before the pardons took place on Inauguration Day, now-Vice President JD Vance said that violent rioters “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned, while attorney general nominee Pam Bondi said she condemned any violence against officers.
During one heated exchange with Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Patel declined the senator’s invitation to turn around and face Capitol Police officers at work in the hearing room while discussing Patel’s efforts to market a song performed by the so-called “J6 Choir.” Patel said he used to raise money for the families of non-violent Jan. 6 defendants. Patel said he would “never, never, ever accepted violence against law enforcement.”
Patel only went so far on Jan. 6-related issues: He would not state plainly that Trump lost the 2020 election, instead only acknowledging that Joe Biden had been president. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, called it “alarming” that Patel wouldn’t answer a “simple” and “factual” question, noting the role that the FBI plays in election law.
“The FBI is the primary agency responsible for investigating election-related crimes, including fraud and the denial of voting rights,” Hirono said. “So, being able to separate fact from conspiracy theories around elections is an important thing for the FBI director.”
Patel’s confirmation hearing came amid a broader effort by the Trump administration to bring sweeping changes to the Justice Department and the FBI. Employees who worked on the criminal investigations into Trump have been fired. A GOP staffer and an Elon Musk associate have started working in the bureau before Patel’s arrival. A handful of FBI leaders were told they’d be demoted unless they chose to either resign or retire.
Former U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, who oversaw the Jan. 6 investigation, told NBC News that roughly 400 cases were either pending in court or were in the pipeline but hadn’t yet been charged when Trump shut down the probe of the Capitol riot.
“A substantial portion of those cases involved violence, and the individuals that were involved in assaulting and forcibly resisting officers, those individuals won’t be held accountable, and there won’t be a public record created of their actions,” Graves said.
Still, Graves said, the prosecutions created “a robust public record of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of documents that thoroughly document for anyone who cares to genuinely know the facts” about what that occurred that day.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedmann wrote in an order Thursday that there was an assertion in Trump’s pardon that was “factually incorrect” and said cases against Jan. 6 rioters were well supported, often with “powerful testimony from law enforcement officers” and “hundreds of hours of shocking videos of assaults on the Capitol and those trying to protect it.” Trump’s assertions about the handling of Jan. 6 cases, he wrote, was simply untrue.
“There has been no ‘grave national injustice.’ And just because the Proclamation was signed by the President does not transform up into down or down into up as if peering through the looking glass of Alice in Wonderland,” Friedmann wrote. “The voluminous records created in these cases and thoughtfully considered sentences imposed by judges of this Court will forever reflect that in a tumultuous time following the events of January 6, 2021, this Court was at all times a place of law and fact.”
