What did those tentacles do? First and foremost, they extended into the taxpayers’ pockets to extract tens of billions of dollars a year, transferring those dollars to organizations and agencies favored by the transnational elite. The projects could be anything from overthrowing a government or two to putting some spending money into the pockets of the favored elites.

A grain or two of rice might be given to some starving people for appearance’s sake, but that was hardly the point. The grift and the power were.

A perfect example is the case of Rory Stewart, a former Member of Parliament in the Conservative Party, a staunch “Remainer” with a rather plummy background that included everything from the Eton to Oxford to MI6ish stuff best not spoken of to politics to academia track. His father was literally a colonial official, and Stewart styles himself an adventurer akin to the Victorians. He has taught at Yale and Harvard and hosts the most popular political podcast in the UK. He almost replaced Theresa May after she was displaced.

Stewart is big mad because USAID funds were cut, and you will be delighted that he is after you watch this.

The HORROR! His wife’s cushy nonprofit that, to be honest, pretty much exploits Indigenous artists around the world by purchasing their products for pennies and selling their wares online at outrageous prices, is losing its next installment of a million dollars because of mean old Donald Trump.

Where, oh where, will Rory get his spending money from, if not the American taxpayers? (Actually, Rory is pulling in around £70,000 a month from his podcast, so he is doing fine).

Stewart expects people to be appalled that the gravy train has been cut off, not realizing that almost nobody knew or cared about the money flowing into his pockets until he whined that it stopped.

Now that we know, we want the rest of it back. Teaching Afghan women about Dadaism is not how we expected our foreign aid money to be spent.

Sending money to Turquoise Mountain is hardly the worst thing USAID ever spent money on. I wish it were, because then I wouldn’t have to worry about the hundreds of millions we sent to Hamas, or al Qaeda, or ISIS.

But it may be the most symbolic.

USAID was the mad money for the transnational elite. It was a giant pool of cash into which they could dip their hands and extract whatever amount was needed to slake their thirst.

Want to overthrow a government? USAID can help! Want to create a Narrative™? USAID has bought and paid for journalists and a censorship arm to help with that too!

Want to start an arts and crafts company? The US taxpayer will make it happen!

One has to wonder just how many bits of USAID money have flowed through Stewart’s life? His globe-trotting, intelligence-adjacent history, political and academic career, and his foray into broadcasting all suggest that lots of opportunities were there for the taking.

I have neither the time nor the skills to dig through his income flow and history to see how many times his life has intersected with USAID generosity, but at least $10 million has flowed his direction just through Turquoise Mountain.

No wonder he is upset. Wouldn’t you be if some Bad Orange Man and Crazy Rocket Man dammed up the flow of free money into your pockets?

The wonder of it all is that so many of his listeners are as horrified as he is at Trump for doing this.

The top federal prosecutor overseeing criminal cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., has abruptly resigned, claiming that Trump-appointed officials insisted she investigate a government contract awarded during Joe Biden’s administration and take decisive action to freeze the recipient’s assets.

Denise Cheung, the office’s now-former criminal chief, submitted her resignation on Tuesday in a letter to interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin.

“When I started as an AUSA, I took an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, and I have executed this duty faithfully during my tenure, which has spanned through numerous Administrations,” Cheung wrote in her email obtained by far-left CNN.

“I know that all of the AUSAs in the office continue to honor their oaths on a daily basis, just as I know that you have always conducted yourself with the utmost integrity.”

Far-left The New York Times reported, citing sources close to the situation, that Cheung stepped down in protest just a day after President Trump announced his nominee for U.S. Attorney, Ed Martin.

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According to Reuters:

The top federal prosecutor who supervised criminal cases at the Washington D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office resigned on Tuesday, citing what she described as an improper demand by Trump-appointed officials to launch a criminal probe and pursue an asset freeze.

In a letter to the interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin reviewed by Reuters, the office’s criminal chief Denise Cheung wrote that President Donald Trump’s administration had ordered her to investigate a government contract awarded during Joe Biden’s administration and pursue a freeze of the recipient’s assets.

Acting US Attorney for DC, Ed Martin, a staunch defender of constitutional rights, has been outspoken about the necessity of undoing the politically motivated January 6 prosecutions pushed by the previous administration.

Cheung, who had been with the DOJ for years, reportedly opposed Martin’s efforts to reassess the use of felony obstruction charges against January 6 defendants—a charge that the Supreme Court recently overturned.

Rather than uphold justice, Cheung appears to have chosen to walk away rather than be part of an effort to rectify the government’s politically motivated prosecution of Trump supporters.

Today, we as a nation are monstrously in debt and borrowing more and more off the backs of our children and grandchildren. Yet Alexander Hamilton, our country’s first Secretary of the Treasury, said in Federalist 35 that our economy will work best when we have less needless regulations.

He notes: “It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.” He says what we need is “a judicious exercise of the power of taxation.”

Fast forward to today. President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and his whiz kids at DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), are uncovering outrageous misuse of our hard-earned tax dollars by previous administrations.

Take USAID, which was established over sixty years ago to provide “U.S. foreign development assistance from the American people

Most Americans, if they knew anything about the agency, thought we were providing food or clean water to impoverished nations, but noooo.

What has been revealed is outrageous. U.S. Congressman Brian Mast from Florida has released a laundry list of outrageous uses of our tax dollars, supposedly to help with “development assistance.” This list includes USAID funding as well as that of the State Department.

Mast notes that these are some of the ways our tax dollars are at work around the world— because of the left’s hijacking of USAID and the State Department:

▪$15 million for condoms to the Taliban through USAID.

▪$446,700 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal through the State Department.

▪$1 million to boost French-speaking LGBTQ groups in West and Central Africa through the State Department.

▪$14 million in cash vouchers for migrants at the southern border through the State Department.

▪$20,600 for a drag show in Ecuador through the State Department.

▪$47,020 for a transgender opera in Colombia through the State Department.

▪$32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru through the State Department.

▪$55,750 for a climate change presentation warning about the impact of climate change in Argentina to be led by female and LGBT journalists through the State Department.

▪$3,315,446 for “being LGBTQ in the Caribbean” through USAID.

As Gary Bauer puts it (End of Day Report, 2-10-25): “they are promoting anti-Christian values, including LGBTQ ideology and abortion worldwide.”

Half a million dollars spent to promote atheism in Nepal? The founding fathers said America was founded on the belief that God is the source of our rights. Why are we spreading unbelief in other places? To this day, our national motto is “In God We Trust.”

Mast also lists: “$425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly through USAID.” And on it goes. Think about this when you’re doing your taxes this year.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now the head of USAID, and he said last week he’s paring that staff down from 10,000 to 300. That’s like Gideon’s army in the Bible. There were 10,000 wanting to serve, but God had Gideon trim it down to only 300, and He gave them the victory.

The founders of America would be appalled that this is how far we have fallen from their vision of limited government, based on God-given rights and the consent of the governed. I never consented, nor would I consent, to such immoral goals.

No wonder President Trump is trying defund this wasteful spending.

In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned the new nation to be careful about national debt: “As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible.” Yet we are not using public credit “sparingly” at all.

Thomas Jefferson also gave some strong warnings about our economy. In his First Inaugural Address, our third president stated, “a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

James Madison said, “I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse, and in a Republican Government a greater curse than in any other.”

Thomas Jefferson once said, “To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

And to think part of our debt today is because of these left-wing boondoggles. One can only imagine what the founding fathers would think of our bloated government today.

Dr. Jerry Newcombe

There was plenty of reaction on social media, and poor Toobin perhaps got the worst of it, but most of those funny posts aren’t fit to be printed here.

Hard Times at CNN: Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin ‘Takes Some Time Off’ After ‘Going Anthony Weiner’ on Zoom Call

CNN Produces Perhaps the Greatest Image in Cable News History During Segment on DOGE Analyst ‘Big Balls’

Interestingly, CNN doesn’t mention the name-calling on their webpage showing the clip; instead, their headline is “Anderson Cooper pushes back on Musk’s claim DOGE is transparent with Americans.” I love how they’re using the word “transparent” in a headline yet ignoring what is actually newsworthy about their own clip.

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RedState’s Bonchie weighed in and noted how the moment showed just how the media has blown a gasket:

Sununu and the mudslinging anchor were talking about the many cuts to the federal government that DOGE has enacted, cuts that have completely freaked out unhinged politicians like House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who was frothing at the mouth at a demonstration the other day and strangely chanting, “We will win! We Will Win!” Bad news, Chuck: you just lost in November.

Cooper admitted that Elon Musk had claimed there was government waste, but hadn’t proved it yet:

COOPER: He’s giving very specific things, but he’s not actually giving any evidence of that.

SUNUNU: It’s all going to come because what they also said was, if we have to go to Congress, we’ll go to Congress. We’ll show where it is.

COOPER: But some of the details that have come out like the $59 million spent on luxury hotels. It’s actually not–

SUNUNU: You’re talking about the FEMA money that was abused for migrants. That was FEMA money for migrants. That’s ok now?

COOPER: No, I’m not saying it’s ok. Don’t put words in my mouth.

SUNUNU: So, would you stop that? Would you stop that process?

COOPER: Don’t be a d***.

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Very impressive, Anderson. No, it’s not the worst word I’ve ever heard, and no I’m not shocked beyond the pale—but it isn’t what serious anchors making millions of dollars should be doing on live newscasts.

It’s just one more in the thousand cuts that have led to their decline from the once “The Most Trusted Name in News” to a ratings black hole and a general laughingstock.

It’s still good for entertainment, though, as we just saw.

Bob Hoge—pronounced Hoge like rogue—is a RedState front page contributor and Editor and proud father of four. He is shown sporting his COVID beard, which his wife has since forced him to shave. Follow him on Twitter @Bob_Hoge_CA.

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Why Are Congress and the Media Freaking Out Over Reducing the Grift 

Now that President Trump is back in the White House, it’s time to take a victory lap and remind every smug liberal that their so-called “34-time convicted felon” narrative was always a sham. We knew it. You knew it. And now, with the truth coming to light, even some of them are starting to wake up.

Because here’s the reality: That entire case was a disgraceful political hit job, and the most blatant abuse of the justice system we’ve ever seen. The Biden DOJ never even bothered to hide their corruption. They weaponized the courts like a banana republic, hoping to kneecap Trump before the election. Spoiler alert: It failed spectacularly.

The “Crime” That Wasn’t a Crime Let’s break this down so even your most TDS-ridden cousin at Thanksgiving can understand it:

Trump was hit with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records—which, by the way, is a misdemeanor. The statute of limitations on a misdemeanor in New York? One year. So how did Alvin Bragg upgrade this to a felony? Well, in legal gymnastics that would make Simone Biles jealous, they claimed Trump falsified records to cover up another crime.

What was the other crime? No one knows! The indictment didn’t say, the judge didn’t specify, and the jury was handed a grab bag of possibilities, like some twisted legal lottery.

The jury wasn’t even required to agree on what this “other crime” was. One juror could think it was election fraud, another could believe it was a tax violation, and another could claim Trump’s hair is a crime against humanity. It didn’t matter.

The Statute of Limitations Trick Even with this legal charade, the prosecution had a problem: The case was still outside the statute of limitations.

But fear not! The deep state had a trick up its sleeve. They used a court ruling from Harvey Weinstein’s appeal (yes, THAT Harvey Weinstein) which said time spent out of state could “pause” the statute of limitations.

Trump, being the former leader of the free world, traveled frequently. So they decided that because Trump was… you know… doing his job, his statute of limitations clock should be stopped.

Yeah, that sounds fair.

Let’s be clear: Trump was never told what crime he was supposedly covering up until AFTER the trial.

Think about that.

How do you mount a defense against an unknown crime? That’s not justice. That’s a third-world dictatorship.

But the jury? They weren’t troubled by such pesky details. They were handed a list of three possible crimes—one state election law violation, one federal election law violation, and a tax issue—and told they didn’t even have to agree on which one Trump “covered up.”

Meaning? We don’t even know what crime Trump was actually convicted of!

This isn’t just a sham trial. This is a historic disgrace.

Let’s not forget:

Hillary Clinton literally had a secret server in her basement, deleting 30,000 emails AFTER they were subpoenaed. No charges.

Hunter Biden has been caught in more shady foreign dealings than a Bond villain. Slap on the wrist.

Joe Biden himself was caught with classified documents next to his vintage Corvette—which, by the way, was NOT protected by Secret Service. Nothing happened.

Meanwhile, Trump writes a check to his lawyer and suddenly he’s a felon? Give me a break.

You cannot make this stuff up? USAID, which blessedly is no more, paid for a radical Islamic terrorist’s college tuition. Past receipts show that the former agency footed the bill for Anwar Awlaki’s higher education. Awlaki lied about the country of his birth to obtain funds for college through the State Department. Awlaki later became the point of the lance for al-Qaeda’s digital jihad arm. Investigative Catherine Herridge has more:

Looks like USAID supported college tuition for Anwar Aulaqi (Awlaki) who later became a high level al Qaeda terrorist. Aulaqi falsely claimed he was born in Yemen to secure the financial help via the State Dept. when he was actually a US citizen, born in Las Cruces New Mexico.

Aulaqi would later develop close ties with several 9/11 hijackers and attain leadership status in AQ’s Yemen affiliate. Aulaqi was the godfather of the digital jihad that leveraged his writings and the web to radicalize Americans to AQ’s cause. Aulaqi became the first American targeted for death by the CIA.

In 2011, he was killed in a US drone strike.

…

USAID supported college tuition for Anwar Aulaqi (Awlaki) who later became a high level al Qaeda terrorist.

Aulaqi falsely claimed he was born in Yemen to secure the financial help via the State Dept. when he was actually a US citizen, born in Las Cruces New Mexico.

Aulaqi would later develop close ties with several 9/11 hijackers and attain leadership status in AQ’s Yemen affiliate.

Aulaqi was the godfather of the digital jihad that leveraged his writings and the web to radicalize Americans to AQ’s cause.

Aulaqi became the first American targeted for death by the CIA. In 2011, he was killed in a US drone strike.

…

And yet, some media figures claim they cannot find any waste or abuse at USAID.

Yeah, again, the legacy media is a joke.

How many Americans had even heard of the U.S. Agency for International Development just a month ago? Now in the third week of the second Trump administration, the country is learning that USAID apparently has been running a racket that has propped up the Democratic political machine, which includes the usual big-media players, with tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars.

As political scandals go, this one could be the grubbiest of all.

Democrats are already reeling. Polls show they have become as popular as a pineapple on a pizza. This country would be well served if the party collapsed and the remaining reasonable and sane voters Democratic formed a new group.

The Democratic Party of the 21st century has revealed itself through its radical, nonsensical positions to be a party that no longer can be stomached by most of America. A recent Quinnipiac University survey found that 57% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Democrats, “the highest percentage of voters having an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party since the Quinnipiac University Poll began asking this question.”

Meanwhile, The New York Times’ own polling shows that Americans feel that Democrats are out of touch, and don’t see the party “as an appealing alternative.”

Hastening the downfall might be the scandal that is roiling the waters of the Potomac right now. A nest of corruption, it seems, has been rooted out. And those who have relied on its success are squealing the loudest and longest.

Ostensibly an agency that shuttles financial and other resources for humanitarian reasons, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, looks and acts more like a political slush fund that has kept the political left rich with taxpayers’ dollars than a global development agency.

Earlier this week, stories broke claiming various media outlets, all more defenders of the Democratic Party and the federal administrative state than true journalistic institutions, had received millions of dollars from USAID. The New York Times, Associated Press and Politico, all hostile to the political right, were named as benefactors.

Whoa, said the fact-checkers. These payments were for subscriptions, not for favorable coverage, and the payments weren’t just from USAID, but also from other federal departments and agencies.

Maybe so. Could be that all those subscriptions added up to the millions in question. But that doesn’t fully clear up the issue.

One, did these offices also subscribe to media that dissent from the Washington narrative, which is consistent with the Democratic Party’s agenda, if not perfectly in line with it? Where are the millions in subscription payments to the New York Post, Washington Times, City Journal, Reason, National Review or … Issues & Insights?

As for I&I, we sure didn’t get any. And if we did, we’d be sure to hear about it from the very same people who’ve been squealing about the president shutting down USAID.

Also consider that federal workers are feeding their biases reading the New York Times, Politico the AP and other similar material. They’re living in a bubble in which members serve themselves at the expense of those outside the bubble – you know, the others, the deplorables, the semi-fascists, the bitter clingers, the garbage people.

That few or no federal workers are reading the New York Post, Washington Times, City Journal, Reason and others that would open up new avenues of thinking for them and challenge their political bigotry is disturbing.

Equally disturbing, however, is the strong likelihood that those “news” outlets tailored their coverage to perpetuate and grow the administrative state — and to aid the one major U.S. political party for whom that same administrative state is sacrosanct (hint: It isn’t the Republican Party).

Two, we don’t think we’re being unreasonable to say the subscription arrangement is not an innocent routine because it feels too much like a good way to funnel money to favored and friendly media outfits to get solid propaganda in return. After all, we know that Reuters raked in $300 million from taxpayers to attack Elon Musk because he dared to back Donald Trump.

But, hey, all that money we’ve heard about this week was just for subscriptions, nothing to see here. But what do those outlets provide federal workers that they couldn’t get free on the internet – and maybe by paying attention to their jobs, staying informed about the activities of other departments and agencies, and searching through federal databases? Why does the phrase “money laundering” come to mind?

As events continue to unfold, it appears USAID lavished money not just on media, but on all the right organizations. For instance, author John Ringo has tweeted that the Tides Foundation, “the Soros ‘charity’ that funded much of the Antifa BLM protests in 2020,” has been one of USAID’s primary beneficiaries.

Surprised?

We’ve also heard from Mike Benz, the former State Department official who blew the whistle on the Reuters arrangement. He tweeted earlier this week that “USAID grantee NGOs (non-governmental organizations) literally take their USAID money then turn around and lobby all key members of Congress to give more and more US taxpayer money to USAID each year in the budget. USAID buys an army of lobbyists with your tax dollars to give it more of your money.”

In response, Elon Musk, who has become a villain to the left, called USAID “a criminal organization.” It is, he said, “time for it to die.”

According to DataRepublican (small r), who says she’s cracked the code of the government’s byzantine funding of nonprofits, the scam goes this way:

– Gov-funded NGO gets a USAID grant for something vague like “strengthening education.”

– That NGO dumps millions into a DAF (Donor-Advised Fund).

– The DAF isn’t required to disclose what the NGO told them to do with the money. – But somehow, every hyperpolitical nonprofit with a sketchy agenda ends up getting funded.

DataRepublican identifies one of those nonprofits as Defending Democracy, a never-Trump run in part by the Trump-hating Bill Kristol, as “an indirect beneficiary of USAID through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.”

She also pointed out the millions going to nonprofits organizations provide “immigration-related services,” which is likely a euphemism for groups that help illegal immigrants skirt the law.

We are seeing, as well, accusations that USAID channels have funded outside terrorists, reports that the agency itself was involved in the 2019 Trump impeachment, and research that concluded that the Biden administration weaponized it to establish “foreign aid programs to fund abortion, gender and identity ideology, and climate alarmism.”

It’s still early. Scandals can take any number of turns and some messy situations end up not being scandals at all. But we have questions. We hope the legacy media does, too, and will dig for the story rather than reflexively protect their own. This is a huge story, possibly involving misconduct by elected officials and fraud on a massive scale. There’s no reason not to get all the facts out in the open. Maybe some media outlet that didn’t get federal dollars will give the effort a fair chance.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (“USAID”) has operated for years as a rogue organization inside the federal government’s executive branch, sporting an annual budget of over $23 billion and managing over $40 billion in combined appropriations. Those days are finally over. President Trump has ordered a temporary freeze on most of USAID’s activities and operations and has taken other executive actions to allow a thorough analysis of where all that money is going.

Implementing an executive order issued by President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he has taken over as acting administrator of USAID. The State Department has assumed direct control of this atrociously run executive branch agency, which has abused its so-called “independent establishment” status by veering sharply leftward against the national interests of the United States. Secretary Rubio has provided written notice of the Trump administration’s plans for its changes to USAID’s organizational structure and programs to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and House committees on foreign affairs and relevant appropriations.

Work arrangements with USAID contractors are being terminated or put on hold. Non-essential contractors are being discharged. Many of USAID’s 10,000+ direct hire employees are being placed on paid administrative leave.

USAID is a cesspool of waste, inefficiency, and abuse. Thanks to Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), stones are being turned over to expose the rot underneath. Why, for example, are American taxpayers funding $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,” and $2 million for “LGBT activism” in Guatemala? Why are more than $1 million dollars going to Bangladesh to pay for “gender diversity,” $70,000 to pay for a DEI Musical in Ireland, and $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Columbia? None of these wasteful projects do anything to advance America’s national interest.

Some nonprofit organizations and United Nations agencies that received money from USAID have undermined America’s national security. For example, USAID funding has been used to support hundreds of thousands of migrants making their way to the U.S.-Mexican border to cross into the U.S. illegally, including from Venezuela.

Even more ominously, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been doled out by USAID for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations. And USAID funneled millions of dollars to EcoHealth Alliance, which helped to fund gain-of-function virus research at the infamous Chinese Wuhan lab – the most likely source of the coronavirus that killed more than seven million people worldwide.

DOGE has uncovered these scandalous expenditures by unaccountable bureaucrats and more. But instead of wanting to be good stewards of the American people’s money, congressional Democrats are outraged that their pet progressive, left-wing projects are in jeopardy.

Democrats are exclaiming that President Trump’s directive regarding the reorganization and downsizing of USAID has created a “constitutional crisis.” Some have accused the president of staging a “coup.”

Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland complained that this “illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power is threatening lives all over the world,” adding that it is “a killer: in terms of all of the efforts to shut down global viruses.” Rep. Raskin appears to think that putting a stop to projects like funding the leaky Chinese virology lab engaging in gain-of-function virus research that was the likely source of the killer coronavirus is itself the “killer.”

In addition to targeting President Trump, the progressive Democrat resisters are demonizing Elon Musk as an unelected plutocrat presiding over a “shadow government” running amok. In their fevered imagination, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats doling out taxpayers’ money to looney – sometimes dangerous – projects are serving the American people. But these resisters pillory the nation’s foremost business entrepreneur whom President Trump called upon to use his cost-cutting expertise in helping the president root out government fraud, waste, and inefficiency, as he promised to do during the campaign.

A Senate Judiciary Committee vote on advancing Kash Patel’s nomination to be FBI director was delayed Thursday after Democrats raised objections.

The move will require the committee to take a one week hold before voting on Patel’s nomination but the delay will likely have no bearing on Patel’s ability to ultimately be confirmed.

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s choice to be director of the FBI, appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2025.J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Patel, who has never served as an FBI agent, has become a controversial pick after Democrats questions about his comments that he planned to fire agents and the bureau’s leaders as well as his voicing support for Jan. 6 rioters.

MORE: Kash Patel hearing: FBI director nominee pressed on Jan. 6, conspiracy comments

Democrats argued they needed the pause to see if they could get more information on Patel contending did not provide the committee with information “essential to our consideration of his nomination.”null

In a letter to Republican chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, obtained by ABC News, Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory Booker and Adam Schiff wrote that Patel has “repeatedly refused to discuss the testimony he provided to a federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s unlawful retention of classified documents, as well as his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”

“We regret that you have rejected our efforts to inquire into the first-ever invocation of Fifth Amendment protection by a nominee seeking to lead the FBI,” they wrote.

MORE: Trump aide offered immunity to testify before grand jury about Mar-a-Lago docs: Sources

The senators said that when they asked Patel to disclose information about his grand jury testimony, he said he could not because it was “subject to a seal order” but they said no such order could be identified.

They also argued that Patel’s choice to invoke the Fifth Amendment before a grand jury “merits further inquiry.”

“Until Mr. Patel discloses the substance of his grand jury testimony, the Committee should similarly draw the adverse inference that he has something to hide; that he invoked the Fifth Amendment because his testimony would have shown that he committed a crime or was in other legal peril, which should be disqualifying for any candidate seeking to be confirmed as FBI Director,” the senators wrote.

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s choice to be director of the FBI, appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2025.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

During his hearing before the committee last week, Patel testified that he would be impartial but dodged questions about his comments and associations with far-right groups such as QAnon.

MORE: How fierce Trump ally Kash Patel could help reshape the FBI or Justice Department

Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the committee, said Thursday that the Democrats asked for another hearing due to those concerns and what he said was Patel’s contradictory testimony.

“For God’s sake, to give the most sweeping investigative agency in the United States and the world over to this man to settle political scores is something we’re going to regret. That’s why we asked for a second hearing on this,” he said.

Despite Democratic objections, Republicans have warmly received Patel’s nomination. During his hearing, Grassley called Patel’s career a “study in fighting for unpopular but righteous causes, exposing corruption, and putting America First.”

No Senate Republican has said they intend to vote against Patel at this time.

Calling for a one-week holdover before a vote is allowed under Judiciary Committee rules. Both parties have exercised it regularly when in the minority. The committee will now likely vote on Patel’s nomination next Thursday.

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