President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, said Thursday during his confirmation hearing he did not support the president’s decision to grant clemency to the dozens of Jan. 6 defendants who attacked police officers.
Patel, a 44-year-old lawyer and longtime Trump defender, was grilled by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin (D-IL) about the president’s more than 1,200 pardons and commutations for the violent and nonviolent defendants.
“As we discussed in our private meeting, senator, I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement. … I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement,” Patel said.
