Sen. Whitehouse DESTROYS Kash Patel in Just 12 Minutes — Exposes 20 Of 60 'Enemies List' Targets!

[0:02] Can we confirm here today that there is no court order of any kind that limits your ability [0:11] as a witness before the grand jury to discuss your own testimony to that grand jury? [0:17] We can confirm that pursuant to my action, that that grand jury testimony has been released, [0:24] the transcript. [0:26] Right from the very first seconds of this explosive Senate hearing, [0:30] FBI Director Kash Patel was spectacularly caught in a blatant lie. [0:34] Cornered by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Patel was forced to admit there was never any court order [0:39] preventing him from revealing his grand jury testimony, even though he had shamelessly [0:43] used that exact excuse to dodge accountability before. [0:46] But hold on, this is only the tip of a massive, terrifying scandal. [0:50] What follows is a brutal, no-holds-barred takedown that rips the lid off the FBI's darkest secrets. [0:56] A chilling enemies list with 60 names and 20 victims already destroyed. [1:01] Suspicious pauses in background investigations. [1:05] Shocking political loyalty tests, asking agents who they voted for. [1:09] And the ruthless weaponization of America's most powerful law enforcement agency [1:13] into a personal revenge machine under Kash Patel. [1:16] Is the FBI still protecting the American people? [1:19] Or has it been completely hijacked by a vengeful director turning it into his own private hit squad? [1:23] The shocking truths exploding in this hearing are far worse than anyone imagined. [1:29] Stay tuned, because what comes next will leave you absolutely speechless. [1:33] Director Patel, welcome. [1:35] Thank you, sir. [1:36] When you were here for your confirmation, we talked about your so-called enemies list. [1:43] It appears to me that there have been adverse actions of various kinds taken against about 20 of the 60 people on your enemies list. [2:00] You've been in office for seven months. [2:02] At that rate, you've got 14 months until you've hit all 60. [2:07] Can you explain that? [2:09] Again, that is an entirely inaccurate presupposition. [2:13] I do not have an enemies list. [2:14] You can continue to characterize it as you wish. [2:17] The only actions we take, generally speaking, for personnel at the FBI are ones based on merit and qualification and your ability to uphold your constitutional duty. [2:26] You fall short. [2:27] You don't work there anymore. [2:29] Well, there was a list. [2:30] You don't like it to be called an enemies list. [2:32] And it had about 60 names and about 20 have had an adverse action. [2:36] So those are, I think, pretty clear facts. [2:39] What you just witnessed was not a simple disagreement over terminology. [2:43] Kash Patel looked Senator Whitehouse dead in the eye and flat-out lied about not having an enemies list, even as he was confronted with cold, hard proof that nearly one-third of the 60 people on that list had already been hit with adverse actions in just seven months. [2:57] This isn't random. [2:59] This is a ruthless purge. [3:00] And let's be crystal clear, that list didn't magically appear. [3:04] It came straight from Patel's own 2023 book, Government Gangsters, where he personally named and attacked dozens of officials he wanted gone. [3:14] According to reporting from the Associated Press, Senator Whitehouse's tally of 20 out of 60 was no exaggeration. [3:20] It was built by cross-referencing Patel's own published targets against real personnel actions taken after he assumed power. [3:26] Some of those actions are anything but minor. [3:28] The Justice Department even issued an unusual public confirmation that it was actively investigating former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, two high-profile figures Patel had explicitly named in. [3:42] His book, this is who Kash Patel really is. [3:45] He denies the list exists while actively checking names off it. [3:50] He hides behind fake talk about merit and qualification, but everybody watching knows exactly what's happening. [3:55] He's turning the FBI into his own personal revenge squad. [3:59] Loyalty to Donald Trump and loyalty to Kash Patel, that's the only thing that matters now. [4:04] Kash Patel? No, he's doing a great job, I think. [4:08] This is dangerous as hell. [4:10] The FBI is not supposed to be a political hit list operation. [4:13] When agents see their colleagues getting axed for being on the wrong side of the director's grudge, the message is loud and clear. [4:20] Keep your mouth shut, stay loyal, or you're finished. [4:23] Patel can call it whatever he wants. [4:25] The rest of us call it a disgrace. [4:28] Morale has never been better. [4:29] When I go across the country and I talk to the line agents and the intelligence analysts and professional staff, I travel around the country, I talk to our state and local partners. [4:37] They tell me one thing resoundingly. [4:38] We're finally going to do the work that we were asked to do with the resources that we needed to get the job done. [4:43] And that's what this administration is focused on. [4:45] And that's why you're seeing the results that we talked about. [4:47] But while Kash Patel paints this rosy picture of sky-high morale, the reality on the ground is very different. [4:53] Whistleblowers are coming forward, senior veterans are being fired as scapegoats, and the loyalty purge continues. [5:00] Who are you really fooling, Director Patel? [5:02] The enemies list was just the warm-up. [5:05] What White House dropped next was even worse. [5:07] Let me move on to your grand jury testimony, which we also talked about when you were here. [5:17] I think you indicated that you understood that a witness in the grand jury is free to discuss afterwards whatever they told the grand jury. [5:29] And you then went on to suggest, saying, I can't go into court orders granted by the D.C. district chief judge, and you want me to violate a court order. [5:49] Or in those remarks, you fairly plainly suggested there was a court order of some kind that somehow restricted or limited your ability to discuss your own testimony to that grand jury. [6:08] Since then, that chief judge that you mentioned, Judge Bosberg, has written, and I'm quoting him here, [6:15] Federal rule of Criminal Procedure 6E allows witnesses like Patel to divulge the contents of their testimony, [6:25] meaning that nothing was preventing him from doing so before the committee. [6:32] Can we confirm here today that there is no court order of any kind that limits your ability as a witness before the grand jury [6:43] to discuss your own testimony to that grand jury? [6:46] We can confirm that pursuant to my action, that that grand jury testimony has been released, the transcript. [7:00] Let's, in what forum was it released, may I ask? [7:04] Publicly. [7:05] Okay, we'll check on that. [7:08] The FBI does background investigations. [7:13] In the case of a U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, [7:22] it has come to light that, in a civil proceeding, that Fox News executives, prior to her confirmation, [7:38] called her, I'm quoting here, a reckless maniac who makes, quote, insane comments, [7:49] and said, I don't trust her to be responsible, [7:55] and noted her penchant for what they called random conspiracy theories on weird internet sites. [8:02] My question to you is, did that turn up in her background investigation? [8:11] For any background investigation, Senator, we do not discuss those publicly. [8:16] And for every background investigation, when there's adjudication, it is not made by me. [8:21] It is made by the career professionals who run the inspection division and background check system. [8:25] Do you know if that information was found? [8:28] You see, we're an oversight body here, and there are really three possibilities here. [8:33] One is that the FBI background investigation didn't find that stuff. [8:38] That's worth noting, because these investigations, full-field background investigations, [8:43] are supposed to find that stuff. [8:45] That's possibility one. [8:47] Possibility two is that the FBI did, in fact, find that information, [8:51] and then did not report it to the administration or to the committee. [8:59] And the third is that you found it, you reported it to the administration, [9:06] and they went ahead with her nomination, [9:10] knowing that she had been described as a reckless maniac who made insane comments, [9:17] who wasn't trusted by colleagues to be responsible, [9:20] and who had a penchant for random conspiracy theories on weird internet sites. [9:24] Are you saying that this committee does not have any authority or reason [9:28] to look into which of those things is true? [9:31] This committee can look into anything it wishes. [9:33] I'm telling you that the background investigations that are done by the HRD division [9:37] are done by career individuals. [9:39] They do not report the details of those to me. [9:41] They adjudicate those independently and individually. [9:45] That's how it's always been done. [9:47] Let's slow down on that court order excuse, because it deserves far more scrutiny. [9:52] The Judge Patel repeatedly hid behind Chief Judge James Boasberg of the D.C. [9:56] District Court isn't some random name. [9:58] He's one of the most attacked judges in the federal system right now. [10:01] He's the same judge who blocked controversial deportation flights, [10:05] presided over sensitive grand jury matters from the 2020 election probes, [10:09] and was publicly called a radical left lunatic by President Trump himself, [10:13] with reports of direct threats coming from within the Justice Department. [10:18] So when Patel told Congress he couldn't discuss his own grand jury testimony [10:21] because of a supposed court order from this judge, [10:24] he wasn't citing some minor technicality. [10:26] He was weaponizing the authority of a judge his own administration was targeting [10:30] to stonewall the very Senate that confirmed him. [10:32] Then Boasberg's actual ruling came out and destroyed the excuse. [10:36] Under federal rule 6-et, Patel was free to speak the entire time. [10:40] There was no order. [10:41] There never was. [10:42] Then Whitehouse turned to Jeanine Pirro, [10:44] and the logic became impossible to escape. [10:47] He laid out three brutal possibilities, [10:49] and none of them looked good for Patel. [10:51] Either the FBI's vetting completely missed Fox News executives [10:55] calling her a reckless maniac who made insane comments, [10:59] or they found it and buried it, [11:00] or they reported it and the administration ignored it anyway, [11:04] because loyalty trumped everything. [11:06] Patel's response? [11:07] He ducked behind career professionals and claimed he doesn't get involved. [11:11] That's not leadership, that's abdication of responsibility. [11:14] As FBI director, he owns every major background check. [11:17] This isn't about one bad nomination. [11:20] It's about whether the FBI under Kash Patel [11:22] can still be trusted to protect the country. [11:24] When vetting becomes politicized, national security crumbles. [11:29] What Whitehouse exposed next was even more disturbing. [11:32] What happened during the pause of FBI background investigations [11:36] that was alleged in the complaint against you and the FBI [11:42] by the FBI agents who were terminated? [11:46] On February 12th, Emil Bovee directed the FBI, quote, [11:51] to pause any FBI background investigations of Trump nominees [11:55] until Patel was confirmed, which happened on February 20th, [11:58] is the general description of what they alleged. [12:02] Why do you know were background investigations paused? [12:07] Was it so material like this could be scrubbed out of them? [12:11] And have they been resumed without that pause fully and normally [12:18] after your arrival on February 20th? [12:21] I can speak to the time period since I got there. [12:24] Background investigations have been ongoing across the board at the FBI. [12:30] Why was the pause? [12:32] Do you know? [12:33] I was not there. [12:34] Wasn't explained to you when you got there? [12:36] Oh, by the way, boss, they've had a multi, an eight-day pause [12:40] on background investigations. [12:41] You think that would be something that would be explained to you at some point? [12:45] Again, I leave it to the men and women at HRD division [12:48] to run background investigations. [12:50] I do not interfere with them. [12:51] I get that. [12:53] But what I don't get is whether you were told about that pause. [12:57] And why would you not be told about that pause? [12:59] I don't recall that, sir. [13:01] All right. [13:02] The allegation also relates that part of the employee review of senior staff [13:18] was whether or not they voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. [13:29] Since when is who you voted for a proper question for agents to be asked? [13:40] I don't know what allegation you're referring to, Senator. [13:42] If it's from an ongoing matter of litigation, I can't discuss that. [13:47] But what I can discuss is I can only speak to the FBI's background investigations. [13:53] There are other background investigations conducted across the government. [13:57] I can only speak to mine. [13:58] So just to clarify, I'm not talking about the FBI full field background investigations. [14:03] I'm talking about internal employee reviews for promotion, for termination, [14:11] for job actions of various kinds. [14:13] And my question to you is, is it now the policy of the FBI to ask agents who they voted for? [14:25] And since when is who agents voted for a proper question for the FBI to ask? [14:33] Taking those in reverse order, it's not a proper question. [14:37] And it's improper to allege that I'm doing that. [14:40] And also at the FBI specifically, under my leadership, we do not ask who you voted for. [14:46] And just one correction for the record, if I may, Senator, it's security division that runs [14:49] background investigations, not HRD. [14:52] I don't recall that, sir. [14:53] How incredibly convenient. [14:55] An eight-day freeze on background investigations for Trump nominees ordered at the highest levels, [15:01] perfectly timed to end the exact day Kash Patel took office, [15:04] and somehow the new director was never briefed? [15:07] That's not an oversight. [15:08] That's a massive red flag. [15:10] That pause created the perfect window for inconvenient information to quietly disappear. [15:15] Exactly like the damaging material on Janine Pirro that somehow never surfaced properly. [15:19] Coincidence? [15:20] No one with a straight face should buy that. [15:23] And the voting question allegation isn't White House editorializing. [15:26] It comes from a real complaint filed by terminated FBI agents who say internal reviews probed staff [15:32] on how they voted in 2024. [15:34] Patel quickly denied it was policy under his watch. [15:37] But by now, under my leadership, sounds more like a shield than any real accountability. [15:42] He's happy to take the title, just not the responsibility. [15:45] This is the consistent pattern throughout the entire hearing. [15:48] Whenever White House gets specific dates, names, policies Patel suddenly doesn't recall, [15:52] defers to career staff or dodges with technicalities. [15:58] No accountability, no straight answers. [16:00] Just endless deflection. [16:02] It's not just evasive. [16:04] It's insulting. [16:06] And what came next exposed Patel's breathtaking personal hypocrisy in the most disgusting way possible. [16:11] Back with us is Senator Sheldon White House. [16:14] And Senator, it sounds like there's a new question for confirmation hearings for FBI directors. [16:19] Will you use the plane for date night? [16:21] Yeah, he kind of teed this up for himself, old Patel did. [16:29] He repeatedly, it wasn't just that once, he repeatedly attacked Chris Wray, who, by the way, [16:35] had done great service to the Trump administration, providing cover for the fake Kavanaugh investigation. [16:41] So he kind of has been turned on here, Chris Wray. [16:44] But anyway, there's Patel attacking him over and over and over again about use of the FBI jet. [16:52] So there's the hypocrisy. [16:55] Then with all these Trump people, there's the entitlement. [16:57] I mean, this is bling for them. [16:59] They just want to eat up every executive perk they can get near. [17:04] And frankly, the more they abuse it, the cooler it seems to be for them. [17:08] So buzzing around the country in the FBI jet for dates with his girlfriend seems like an okay thing to them. [17:18] And then what's really cheesy, I mean, the part that angers me here more than even just the waste, [17:24] is that when he's caught, when he's busted doing something that stupid, [17:28] instead of owning up to it, he takes it out on a 27-year FBI veteran who runs the critical incident response group. [17:37] And he fires that person because his tail, the tail number on his jet was being tracked [17:45] the way the tail numbers on essentially every jet are being tracked. [17:50] So there was nothing that the critical incident response team leader did that was wrong. [17:57] He just has, Patel just needed a fall guy. [18:01] And I've got to believe that in an organization like the FBI, [18:04] when you start doing things like that, it starts to poison the agency against you. [18:10] And more and more whistleblowers begin to emerge [18:12] because they know the boss is not competent and not decent [18:16] and was bad for the organization that they serve and love. [18:21] Senator, about those whistleblowers, [18:22] is someone on the Democratic side of the Senate Judiciary Committee [18:25] penciling in a possible hearing if the Democrats win back the Senate, [18:30] of all of these people who have been fired in this Trump FBI? [18:40] Yeah, and actually, we're going to hear from them a good deal sooner than that [18:43] because three senior FBI agents who were fired [18:46] have filed a civil lawsuit contesting their filing, their firing. [18:51] And as that proceeds, there's going to be the opportunity for discovery. [18:58] And discovery is always the jewel of litigation. [19:02] This is the epitome of disgusting. [19:05] While Cash Patel was busy purging the FBI, [19:08] he was treating it like his own personal luxury service. [19:11] Bloomberg Law exposed how he used official FBI jets [19:14] to fly across the country for romantic dates with his musician girlfriend. [19:18] When the tail numbers got noticed, he didn't own up to it. [19:21] He fired a two-seven-year veteran, [19:24] the head of the Critical Incident Response Group, [19:26] just to have a fall guy. [19:28] This is the same man who once attacked former director Chris Ray for jet usage. [19:32] Stephen Palmer did nothing wrong. [19:34] He was simply in charge of aviation [19:36] when Patel got caught living like a king on the taxpayer's dime. [19:40] And he wasn't the first. [19:41] He was the third head of that unit forced out during Patel's short tenure. [19:45] Every time an unflattering story breaks, [19:48] someone else takes the fall. [19:49] Instead of taking responsibility, Patel needed a scapegoat. [19:53] That kind of behavior is poisoning the entire FBI. [19:56] Good agents are watching, and more whistleblowers are stepping forward. [20:00] Three senior agents have already filed a civil lawsuit, [20:02] and the discovery process is about to rip this whole rotten operation wide open. [20:06] Step back and look at the full picture White House exposed. [20:10] A director who denies an enemy's list while the numbers don't lie, [20:14] a fake court order excuse destroyed by the judge himself, [20:17] a background check scandal with no good answers, [20:20] and a pattern of firing career professionals the moment he looks bad. [20:24] Together, these aren't isolated mistakes. [20:26] They paint the portrait of a man running the FBI, [20:29] less like a law enforcement agency and more like his personal political weapon. [20:33] If you want to see how deep this politicization really goes, [20:36] subscribe to Daily Brief right now and turn on notifications. [20:40] Kash Patel's next hearing is coming, and so are the next headlines.