Kash Patel sworn in at White House as new FBI director, calls it the ‘greatest honour’ Today World News

Kash Patel is sworn in as FBI director by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Indian Treaty Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) on the White House campus in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 21, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Kash Patel was sworn in on Friday (February 21, 2025) as the FBI director, calling the opportunity to lead the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency the “greatest honour” of his life.

Mr. Patel was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday by a 51-49 margin, with two Republican lawmakers, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, breaking party ranks and voting against him.

“I think he’ll go down as the best ever at that position,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Friday ahead of the White House swearing-in, which was conducted by Attorney General Pam Bondi and attended by Republican supporters in Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

Mr. Trump added that the ”agents love this guy.”

Mr. Patel will inherit an FBI gripped by turmoil as the Justice Department over the past month has forced out a group of senior bureau officials and made a highly unusual demand for the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump loyalist Kash Patel

Democrats had sounded the alarm about the appointment, saying they fear Mr. Patel will operate as a loyalist for Mr. Trump and abuse the FBI’s law enforcement powers to go after the president’s adversaries. They’ve cited past comments such as his suggestion before he was nominated that he would “come after” anti-Trump “conspirators” in the government and media.

Mr. Patel sought to assuage those concerns at his confirmation hearing last month, saying he intended to follow the Constitution and had no interest in pursuing retribution, though he also said at his swearing-in Friday that reporters had written “fake, malicious, slanderous and defamatory” stories about him.

Republicans angry over what they see as law enforcement bias against conservatives during the Democratic Biden administration, as well as criminal investigations into Mr. Trump, have rallied behind Mr. Patel as the right person for the job.

Major changes in FBI

Mr. Patel has spoken of his desire to implement major changes at the FBI, including a reduced footprint in Washington and a renewed emphasis on the bureau’s traditional crime-fighting duties rather than the intelligence-gathering work that has come to define its mandate over the past two decades as national security threats have proliferated.

He said Friday that the FBI’s “national security mission” was equally as important as its efforts to fight violent crime and drug overdoses.

Kash Patel has told senior officials that he plans to relocate 1,000 employees at FBI headquarters to field offices around the country and move an additional 500 to a bureau facility in Huntsville, Alabama, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.

They reflect his long-stated determination to reduce the FBI’s footprint in Washington and have more of a presence in offices in other cities.

“Anyone that wishes to do harm to our way of life and our citizens, here and abroad, will face the full wrath of the DOJ and FBI,” Mr. Patel said. “If you seek to hide in any corner of this country or planet, we will put on the world’s largest manhunt and we will find you and we will decide your end-state.”

A former Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutor, Mr. Patel was selected in November to replace Christopher Wray, who was picked by Trump in 2017 and who resigned at the conclusion of the Biden administration to make way for his chosen successor.

Mr. Wray infuriated Mr. Trump throughout his tenure, including after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August 2022 for classified documents in one of two federal investigations that resulted in indictments against Trump that were dismissed after his election win.

FBI directors are given 10-year terms as a way to insulate them from political influence and keep them from becoming beholden to a particular president or administration. But Mr. Trump fired the FBI director he inherited, James Comey, after Comey had spent over three years on the job and replaced Wray after more than seven years in the position.