Days before the high -risk confirmation hearing this week of Kash Patel To be director of the FBI, an office source has presented a new information that questions Patel’s trial during sensitive hostage rescue missions, as CBS News has known.
The complainant, whose identity is being retained by the Senate Democrats for fear of reprisals, worked with the FBI hostage recovery cell, which leads to government missions to rescue hostages abroad. The complainant alleges that Patel violated the protocols firmly rooted to maintain such operations under wrapping until the captives are safely in the hands of the US. And their families have been notified.
In a letter obtained by CBS News, Senator Dick Durbin, the Classification Democrat in the Judicial Committee of the Senate, wrote that Patel, while serving in the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, “broke the protocol with respect to The rescues of hostages to public comments without authorization without authorization.
According to the letter, on October 14 at 10:55 am, the Wall Street Journal He published a story in which Patel confirmed that the two American captives and the remains of a third were exchanged by two hundred hutis fighters who were retained in Saudi Arabia. According to the letter, the news report was published “several hours before the hostages were under the confirmed custody of the United States.” In the end, the Americans returned home safely, but the FBI officials involved in the mission were furious due to Patel’s escape, who recklessly and potentially risk tragic results.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, INC through Getty Images
The Democratic senators sent the letter on Monday morning to the interim director of the FBI, Brian Driscoll, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the interim secretary of the Treasury, David LeBryk and Secretary of State Framework Rubio. Ask for all communications records between Patel and the FBI hostage recovery fusion cell regarding the rescue of the captives, as well as any record that reflects the authorization to reveal the hostage agreement before there was confirmation that the Americans were safely in us, with their hands. .
No Republican senators in the Judicial Committee of the Senate signed the letter.
A source close to confirmation said in response to the accusations: “Mr. Patel was a public defender, decorated prosecutor and a national security official who kept the Americans safe. He has a success history in each branch of the Government, of the Court of the Court.
Alex Gray, former head of the National Security Council during Trump’s first administration, said in a statement: “Anonymous accusations in this letter are simply absurd for anyone who has worked with Kash Patel. In everything he did in the NSC and DOD, Kash put the interests of the American people, and particularly the interests of US hostages and illegal detainees and their families, first. “
“The success that President Trump and his NSC had in the against terrorism and hostage recovery missions were largely due to Kash’s ability and professionalism,” Gray said. He referred to the accusations of the complainant as “Basels” and “the last gasp of discredited political opponents of President Trump.”
Durbin’s letter offers an idea of the democratic strategy for the confirmation hearing on Thursday. The knowledgeable sources tell CBS News that senators will seek to demonstrate that Patel has been involved in a pattern of bad judgment and self -aggrandize FBI.
The letter says that any official “who puts missions or the lives of Americans in danger due to public notoriety and personal benefit is not suitable for leading the main federal agency of the law and the investigation agency.”
Democrats plan to highlight another instance in which Patel has been criticized for their management of a sensitive operation aimed at releasing US captives. Two weeks after Yemen’s hostage agreement, Patel was found in the middle of another high -risk operation. Philip Walton was a 27 -year -old American who had been seized by armed men on his farm in Niger, near the Nigerian border.
The kidnappers transported Walton to Nigeria and demanded a million dollars in rescue. There were also indications that the kidnappers were contemplating to turn it into a terrorist group that operates in the region. Patel was accompanying President Trump on a visit to Fort Bragg, the military installation in North Carol Camp for several hours, enough time to organize a daring raid from team 6 to rescue the hostages. Trump signed the operation, which involved parachutes north of Nigeria and Trekking per miles to the complex where Walton was retained.
So-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper If I had seen the plan, but there were still some final questions that should be answered before it could give the order to go, mainly if the Nigerian government had given permission to the United States to use its airspace. According to waiting memories, Patel, who was the main director of the counterterrorism at that time, assured the officials of the Department of Defense that the State Department had received the necessary permission of the Nigerians. But Patel information was incorrect: the Nigerians had not given their approval.
At this time, the air force aircraft transported by Navy Seals were in the air a few miles from the Nigerian border. Esper wrote in his memoirs: “A sacred oath,” he realized that the Government had to make an agonizing decision. He told the White House that they could move forward with the operation and risk that their planes to demolish, or abort the mission and lose a crucial opportunity to save Walton. But at the last minute, the voice came that the State Department had received authorization to use Nigerian airspace. The mission advanced, was executed without problems and Walton was returned to a safe place.
But Esper and other officials were furious about the role that Patel had played, believing that he had inserted himself in the operation in violation of the regular protocol, and then almost ruined him by transmitting false information. According to the waiting account, Patel carelessness entailed a significant risk for the stamps.
“I worried that being packed in an plane that burns holes in the sky for an extra hour or so in special operators, which could affect their preparation in some way,” he wrote in his memoirs.
Esper also wrote about the incident: “My team suspected that Patel made the approval story, but they didn’t have all the facts.”
Patel has denied the version of waiting events. In his own book, “Government Gangsters”, Patel portrays Esper as an actor “in a deep state” that “always seemed to be sub -verting the president’s agenda”, even by placing obstacles to anti -terrorist raids in Africa and the Middle East. ” He argued that Trump had the highest authority to order the mission.
Last week, Durbin met with Patel and asked about the waiting story about his role in the almost failed Nigerian incursion. The sources said Patel again refuted the version of waiting events. Durbin still did not have the complainant’s information on Yemen’s hostage agreement, but he is expected to closely question the FBI nominee on that episode at the Confirmation Hearing on Thursday.
However, Patel answers those questions, there is no suspense about how Durbin and his fellow Democrats in the Senate Judicial Committee will vote. After his meeting with Patel, Durbin issued a statement saying that he will not vote to confirm Patel.
“Kash Patel does not have the experience, the temperament or the judgment to lead the FBI,” said his statement.
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