A top Democratic leader weighing Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director accused him Tuesday of directing a purge of career officials and later perjuring himself in Senate testimony by saying he had no knowledge of any plans for dismissals.
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In a publicly released letter, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said he’d received “highly credible information from multiple sources” that Patel, whose nomination faces a vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, provided the Trump administration with the names of executives he wanted forced out of the senior FBI posts.
“It is unacceptable for a nominee with no current role in government, much less at the FBI, to personally direct unjustified and potentially illegal adverse employment actions against senior career FBI leadership and other, dedicated nonpartisan law enforcement officers,” Durbin wrote in the letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
The letter did not say where Durbin’s information had come from. During a speech Tuesday on the Senate floor, the senator said his staff had been contacted by “credible whistleblowers at the highest level” and urged his Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to reconsider their support for Patel.
Still, the nominee — an outspoken Trump loyalist who has worked as a prosecutor, a congressional staffer and as an aide on the National Security Council — appears to...
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