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President Donald Trump’s nominee for the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, has cleared one final hurdle in the longwinded journey of confirmation in the Senate.
On Thursday morning, Patel survived a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will allow him to move forward to a final floor vote in the broader Senate. The vote in committee was strictly along party lines at 12-10.
The vote for Patel comes one week after Senate Democrats delayed the committee hearing. As reported by RSBN, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said last week that the committee “will not fall for Democrats’ delay tactics” and said he intended to push judiciary members to vote as early as this week.
This week, Grassley made good on that promise.
Patel’s victory in the judiciary is a big win for President Trump. So far, the majority of his cabinet nominees have been confirmed, including Tulsi Gabbard as the new director of National Intelligence and Pam Bondi as the U.S. attorney general.
“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” President Trump said of Patel in a statement last year.
The president said Patel played a “pivotal role” in exposing the “Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax,” and praised him as an “advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.”
Patel’s step toward successful confirmation also comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as the secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday morning, as well, in a final floor vote of 52-48, per Newsweek, with just one “no” vote coming from Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.