Patel Blames Pelosi, Schumer For Capitol Riot During Contentious Hearing
President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, laid waste to the Democrat narrative regarding events ahead of the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building during a contentious hearing in the Senate earlier this week.
The nominee battled with several Democrat senators during the hearing, but his most telling revelation came when he spoke to a much friendlier Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Patel blamed former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York for the trespassing that occurred on that day, claiming she was told about the dangers.
“Days in advance we were in the Oval Office on an unrelated national security matter with the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and myself, and the President authorized up to 20,000-plus National Guard men and women to secure any security measures necessarily related to the capital. We were moving to the fullest extent of the law before the requisite request came from a local governing authority days ahead of time,” Patel said during testimony.
“What were you doing on that day?” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz asked.
“On that day, specifically, responding to, preparing to mobilize and employ the National Guard once we got the lawful request from the local governing authority, which was the mayor of DC and the Speaker of the House,” Patel responded.
“While you were Chief of Staff at DOD, how many times did DOD approach Capitol Police and ask if they needed National Guard assistance?” Cruz asked.
“I believe those letters are well-documented. Numerous instances, and numerous of those instances, those requests were shut down,” the nominee responded.
“Now, am I correct that the Capital Sergeant at Arms said assistance was unnecessary?” Cruz asked.
“That’s correct, Senator,” Patel answered.
“Who did the Sergeant at Arms report to?” the senator inquired.
“The speaker of the House,” Patel responded.
“That would have been Nancy Pelosi at the time. Is that correct?” Cruz pressed.
“Yes, Senator,” Patel said.
“Would that also be Chuck Schumer, then the Senate Majority Leader?” the senator said.
“The Sergeant at Arms, yes, Senator, reports up there,” the nominee replied.
Patel, meanwhile, was in high spirits after he was grilled by lawmakers this week.
The nominee walked out of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing late on Thursday night and told reporters that “it was a fantastic day” when asked how he thought the process was going.
The hearing got particularly heated when he got into a tense back-and-forth with Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar when she tried to smear him as being unqualified.
“Simply this: 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,” Patel said.
“And any accusations that I would put political bias before the Constitution are grotesquely unfair and I will have you reminded I have been endorsed by over 300,000 law enforcement officers to become the next director of the FBI. Let’s ask them,” he added.
Patel rejected Democrats taking his old comments out of context to “score cheap political points.”
“In the collective, all of those statements are taken out of grotesque context,” he said.
Patel accused his critics of “intentionally putting false information into the public ether and creating more public discourse. “The only thing that will matter if I am confirmed as director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, depoliticized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience of the Constitution and a singular standard of justice,” he told the Senate panel.
Obama Accuses JD Vance Of Promoting ‘Blood And Soil’ Politics
Former President Barack Obama rarely mentions Vice President JD Vance by name, but that changed this week with one of his sharpest public attacks since Vance took office.
The comments immediately fueled speculation that Democrats are beginning to focus more attention on the vice president as Republicans look ahead to the post-Trump era.
Speaking Thursday during a conversation with author Malcolm Gladwell, Obama accused Vance of promoting what he described as a “blood and soil” vision of America, despite being married to Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Obama made the remarks while discussing the Reconstruction era and arguing that many of the same debates over citizenship, voting rights and national identity continue today.
“We have a politics now that at least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that ‘We the people’ means a certain kind of people,” Obama said.
“When you have the vice president, current vice president, making a speech that is basically a blood and soil version of ‘We the people,’ that it matters who your parents were and how long they’ve been here despite him being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself.”
The phrase “blood and soil” is historically associated with Nazi Germany and white nationalist ideology.
Obama went on to argue that debates over who belongs in America remain central to the nation’s politics.
“That echoes, then, ideas about who can be a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions,” he said.
Gladwell followed by accusing Vance of hypocrisy, arguing that the vice president was making what he called a nativist argument despite his own family’s immigrant background.
Obama agreed.
“That is progress,” Obama said.
“Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is, because it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others.”
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to Vance’s office for comment.
Obama did not identify the specific speech he was criticizing, but Vance’s most recent nationally televised remarks came during Independence Day celebrations marking America’s 250th birthday.
In that speech, Vance encouraged Americans to reject what he called a “two-dimensional view” of the country focused only on its historical failures.
“So what I’d ask you to do, my fellow Americans, on our 250th birthday, is to reject the two-dimensional view of your fellow citizens and reject the two-dimensional view of your country,” Vance said.
“Reject the view of your nation that sees only its sins, but not its grace and its greatness.”
He also emphasized that America’s accomplishments were achieved by “a common people working towards a common future.”
Obama has generally avoided making Vance a regular target since the vice president took office.
One notable exception came during the 2024 presidential campaign when then-Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
Without naming Vance directly, Obama contrasted Harris’ choice with the Republican ticket.
“When a presidential candidate chooses a running mate, it says a lot about who they are and what kind of president they’ll be,” Obama said at the time, Fox News reported.
Political observers have increasingly discussed Vance as a potential frontrunner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, though he has not announced any plans to run.
Against that backdrop, Obama’s unusually direct criticism is likely to fuel speculation that some Democrats are beginning to sharpen their message against a politician they view as a likely future standard-bearer for the Republican Party. While no Democratic leaders have publicly described their strategy in those terms, prominent figures often begin drawing contrasts with potential future rivals well before a presidential campaign officially begins.
Whether that proves to be the case remains to be seen, but Obama’s remarks marked one of his most pointed critiques of Vance to date and ensured the vice president once again found himself at the center of the national political conversation.
