MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
FBI Director Kash Patel is set to testify today before lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
Yeah. His appearance comes as Patel faces questions about his ability to lead the nation's premier law enforcement agency.
MARTIN: NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is covering this, and he's with us now here in our studios. Good morning, Ryan.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So Patel's appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. It turns out it was already scheduled, but obviously, there is more to talk about now. What are you expecting to hear today?
LUCAS: Well, you're right. There certainly is a lot to talk about, including, of course, the recent shooting of conservative organizer Charlie Kirk and the 22-year-old man from Utah who is in custody as the suspected shooter. State authorities in Utah are expected to formally charge him later today. But in Congress, the FBI's response to the shooting and Patel's actions, in particular, are likely to come under scrutiny from lawmakers. I expect some senators - certainly Democrats - to press Patel about his post on social media during the manhunt. Patel said just hours after the shooting that the subject was in custody, only to tweet roughly 90 minutes later that the person had been released, and the investigation was still ongoing. Patel was on "Fox & Friends" yesterday. He was asked about those tweets. Here's what he said.
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KASH PATEL: Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure. But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not. I was telling the world what the FBI was doing as we were doing, and I'm continuing to do that.
LUCAS: So you hear no regrets there. But look, it is highly unusual, if not unheard of, for FBI officials to use social media like Patel did here. It leads to mistakes. It leads to public confusion. And in this instance, it has fueled questions about Patel's ability to lead the Bureau through high-stakes moments like these.
MARTIN: So to be clear, there were already questions about Patel's suitability to lead the FBI. Now that he's been in charge for seven months, have any of those questions subsided?
LUCAS: Not really, no. In many ways, they've only grown. Last week, for example, three senior FBI officials, some of the FBI's most lauded agents, sued Patel and the FBI. They argue in their lawsuit that they were fired for improper political reasons, even though Patel had promised at his confirmation hearing that no one would be fired for such improper reasons. Now, the lawsuit describes Patel and his deputy, former right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino, and their fellow leaders at the Justice Department as partisan, as inept. It also says that Patel told one of the fired agents that DOJ leaders and the White House had instructed Patel to fire anyone involved in past investigations of President Trump. And that Patel said his own job depended on doing so.
The FBI has declined to comment. It declined to comment when the lawsuit was filed. But look, when Trump tapped Patel to lead the FBI, there were a lot of concerns about his temperament because he was seen as a Trump loyalist, as someone who would do the president's bidding, including pursuing his promise campaign of retribution, and that line of questioning remains front and center now that Patel's been in the job these seven months.
MARTIN: Ryan, what does your reporting indicate about whether Patel's job is secure or not?
LUCAS: Well, it's interesting. There's been some reporting that the White House was not happy with Patel's social media missteps during the Kirk investigation. Ultimately, law enforcement did catch a suspect within a day and a half, and Patel has been playing that up in his public comments since then. He's also been talking up decisions that he said he made that led to the suspect's capture, such as putting up public photos and video. President Trump told Fox News over the weekend that he was proud of the FBI and that Patel and everyone else have done a great job in the Kirk investigation, and Patel, always the active one on social media, promptly reposted that headline.
MARTIN: That is NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. Ryan, thank you.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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