Kash Patel serves up a verbal beatdown for Senate Democrats trying to bash him

Kash Patel, firmly ensconced in his position as FBI director and with seven months of successes under his belt, unloaded on his critics Tuesday in Congress, calling one Democratic senator a “coward” and “buffoon” and another an “embarrassment” who was dangerously dividing the country.

Mr. Patel swatted aside accusations that he had fired agents for being “disloyal” or imposed political litmus tests, defended the decision to require recruits to be able to do a pull-up, and credited his bureau and President Trump for drops in crime and major increases in criminal arrests.

That included 1,700 domestic terrorism investigations, particularly into what the FBI now calls “nihilistic violent extremists,” a 300% increase over last year.

He also pointed to what he called historic transparency, releasing more documents to Congress in just seven months on the job than either of his two predecessors combined during their 11 years in office.

It was his fierce defense of his record and his vicious verbal beatdown of several Democratic senators who criticized him that made a performance for the ages.

Sen. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, capped a long-running feud dating to the time Mr. Schiff was the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Schiff was pursuing Mr. Trump with unfounded Russia “collusion” allegations, and Mr. Patel was a senior staffer for the panel’s Republican members.

On Tuesday, Mr. Schiff sought to portray Mr. Patel as obstructing inquiries into the sex trafficking activities of deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr. Patel said Mr. Schiff was peddling false information, a pattern he accused the senator of following since pursuing Mr. Trump with erroneous allegations.

“You are the biggest fraud ever to sit in the United States Senate. You are a disgrace to this institution and an utter coward,” Mr. Patel said.

He called the senator “a political buffoon, at best.”

Mr. Schiff said Mr. Patel will never be more than “an internet troll.”

Since his confirmation as FBI director, Mr. Patel has been a top target for Democrats. They predicted he would cut a partisan slash through the storied law enforcement agency. On Tuesday, they said the facts have borne that out.

Sen. Cory A. Booker, New Jersey Democrat, said Mr. Patel has fired some agents who flouted Mr. Trump’s priorities and taken others off their jobs to carry out what Mr. Booker characterized as low-priority immigration enforcement, assisting the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation efforts.

“I believe you have made our country weaker and less safe,” he said. “I believe we are more vulnerable to a major event, and I pray to God it doesn’t happen.”

Mocking Mr. Patel, Mr. Booker said he figured Mr. Trump would soon fire the director.

“I think this might be your last oversight hearing,” he said. “He is just not loyal to people like you. I don’t think you’re long for your job.”

Mr. Patel unleashed fury on Mr. Booker by calling the senator “an embarrassment” and ticking off the ways he said the past seven months have made the country safer.

That included 23,000 arrests of violent criminals, double the rate of the previous year. He said the FBI had arrested 1,500 “child predators” and 300 human traffickers, and identified 4,700 trafficked children, a 35% increase.

He said counterintelligence arrests already exceeded last year’s total, with arrests of Chinese, Russian and Iranian bad actors all running at a faster pace.

Mr. Patel suggested that Mr. Booker get used to facing off with him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the director said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, quipped that people usually had to go to the Kennedy Center to see that kind of entertainment.

He said Mr. Booker’s criticism of Mr. Patel rang hollow.

“He wasn’t berating him for failing to do his job, but rather he was furious for Director Patel successfully doing his job,” Mr. Cruz said.

Mr. Patel defended his handling of public information during the search last week for the assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. At one point on the night of the killing, Mr. Patel said the “subject” of the investigation was in custody but walked that back several hours later.

Democrats said that could have hurt the investigation, giving a false sense of security that the real killer had been caught and causing the public not to report more leads.

Mr. Patel said his verbiage may have been wrong in suggesting a single subject was being examined, but he defended his decision to say anything. He called it part of his effort to bring transparency to an agency rocked by scandals over the past decade.

He said transparency extends to files concerning Epstein. He said he had produced far more documents than his predecessors, James B. Comey and Christopher A. Wray, in their 11 years on the job.

He also said he had turned over to Congress 700 pages of documents concerning an anti-Catholic memo written by FBI agents in the Biden administration, compared with 13 pages under Mr. Wray.

Mr. Patel vehemently rebuffed Democrats’ accusations that he had imposed a loyalty test on FBI personnel and denied the charge that agents were being asked whether they voted for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris last year.

“I don’t ask people who they voted for, and neither does the FBI,” he said.

Several Democrats complained that the FBI had relaxed its requirement that recruits have a college degree. Mr. Patel said this was to allow applications from people serving as police officers in local forces or agents in other federal departments who have demonstrated their abilities but lack a degree.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Democrat, said the FBI has changed its physical fitness requirement to include completing a pull-up. She suggested that it was discriminatory.

“A lot of women cannot [do one] because of physiological differences.

Mr. Patel defended the standard.

“If you want to chase down a bad guy and put them in handcuffs, you’d better be able to do a pull-up,” he said.

Sen. Katie Boyd Britt, Alabama Republican, also hailed Ms. Hirono for the question. She said she had recognized physical differences between men and women.

“This is why we continue to say we should have biological men in men’s sports and biological women in women’s sports,” she said.