Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) attempted to walk FBI Director-designate Kash Patel into a rhetorical trap during Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Patel appeared to be more than ready for her line of attack.
In one instance, the Minnesota senator raised a question about a supplement — that she said Patel had promoted — that was advertised as minimizing the potential side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines.
WATCH:
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: “You did promote this supplement and told people that it would reverse or mitigate the side effects from COVID vaccine?”
KASH PATEL: “Did I give people an opportunity to make an independent choice for what’s best for their families? Yes.” pic.twitter.com/VdkL3kXTjC
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 30, 2025
Klobuchar noted that doctors had said the supplement in question did not reverse or mitigate the effects of the COVID vaccines — and then she asked whether Patel himself had run any “clinical trials” before promoting it.
Patel’s response was simple: “I am not a doctor, so no.”
“You did promote this supplement and told people that it would reverse or mitigate the side effects from COVID vaccine?” Klobuchar asked.
“Did I give people an opportunity to make an independent choice for what’s best for their families? Yes,” Patel replied.
Klobuchar tried again with a different topic, asking Patel about exiting FBI Director Chris Wray. She pointed out the fact that Wray had taken the job under difficult conditions, and that the Bureau is still seeing large numbers of applicants — and then argued that if the people did not trust the FBI, it was unlikely that so many would be signing up to work there.
WATCH:
HERE THEY GO AGAIN: Unhinged Sen Amy Klobuchar starts hyperventilating and goes over her time, has to be reigned in by Patel and Grassley.
KASH: “If the best attacks on me are going to be false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations, the only thing this body is doing is… pic.twitter.com/DRLDsdevaS
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 30, 2025
“Applications to the FBI has in fact tripled,” she said. “Do you think people would be applying to that agency like — in those numbers — if they thought it was so corrupt?”
“American public’s trust in it is at 40%, that’s an all-time low,” Patel replied.
Klobuchar then asked whether Patel had suggested shutting down FBI headquarters and turning it into “a museum of the deep state.”
Patel asked Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) for extra time, after which Klobuchar interrupted and repeatedly demanded that Patel answer her question.
Instead, Patel was given a moment to speak his mind — and he did: “If the best attacks on me are going to be false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations, the only thing this body is doing is defeating the credibility of the men and women at the FBI. I stood with them here in this country, in every theater of war we have. I was on the ground in service of this nation, and any accusations leveled against me that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution are grotesquely unfair.”
