The Senate voted Tuesday along party lines to advance the nomination of Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick for FBI director, clearing a procedural hurdle to set up a final vote on the controversial Trump ally to lead the federal law enforcement agency.
Lawmakers in the Upper Chamber voted 48-45 to advance Patel’s nomination, as Democrats hold concerns that he would operate as a loyalist for the president and target the administration’s political enemies.
This sets up a final confirmation vote later in the week. Some of Trump’s other more controversial picks — including new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — have received enough support from Republican lawmakers seeking to fall in line to push the president’s agenda.
KASH PATEL’S NOMINATION TO LEAD FBI CLEARS FIRST MAJOR SENATE HURDLE
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, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
A former intelligence and Defense Department official in Trump’s first term, Patel has supported reshaping the FBI, including by expanding its role to carry out Trump’s mission targeting immigration.
He has been a vocal critic of past FBI investigations into Trump, including on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and debunked allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Patel has been panned for his lack of management experience compared to past FBI directors and for his many incendiary past statements, including calling investigators who probed Trump “government gangsters” and claiming that at least some defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot were “political prisoners.”
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, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Democrats have also criticized Patel for supporting false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election and his refusal to affirm that former President Joe Biden defeated Trump in that year’s election. But Patel has still received support from many Republicans, including moderates.
“I’ve spoken to multiple people I respect about Kash Patel this weekend—both for and against. The ones who worked closely with Kash vouched for him. I will vote for his confirmation,” Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy said Tuesday on X.
PATEL CAMP DECRIES DURBIN ACCUSATIONS AS ‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED’ ATTEMPT TO DERAIL FBI CONFIRMATION
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, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025.(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Patel said at his confirmation hearing last month that Democrats were taking some of his comments out of context or misunderstanding his point, including when he proposed shutting down the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. and turning it into a museum for the “deep state.” Patel also denied the accusation that his book’s inclusion of a list of government officials who he claimed were part of the “deep state” constituted an “enemies list,” pushing back on that allegation as a “total mischaracterization.”
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The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines last week to advance his nomination to the full Senate.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
After being attacked by an immigrant rapist, Jon Fetherston, a former Massachusetts migrant shelter director, is blowing the whistle about the “rampant” abuse in the Massachusetts migrant shelter system, which he said is “just a big, colossal mess.”
Fetherston, who served as the director of the Marlborough migrant shelter from 2023 to 2024, said that the amount of crime, domestic abuse and child neglect that takes place in the Massachusetts migrant shelter system is “mind-boggling.” In an interview with Fox News Digital, Fetherston revealed that he was grabbed and attacked by a Haitian immigrant after he was confronted about raping and impregnating his own teenage daughter.
The Maine Wire first broke the story about the Haitian migrant, Ronald Joseph, 42, impregnating his then 13-year-old daughter. Joseph repeatedly raped and impregnated his daughter while staying at a government-funded migrant shelter at a Holiday Inn in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
MASSACHUSETTS SHELTER PROGRAM THAT HOUSES MIGRANTS HAS HAD OVER 300 ‘SERIOUS INCIDENT’ REPORTS THIS YEAR
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and former Marlborough migrant shelter director Jon Fetherston. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images and Jon Fetherston)
A report by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities obtained by Fox News Digital says that after being informed he would lose access to his daughter, Joseph “got very agitated and started yelling” at Fetherston that “this was all his fault, and he was to blame.”
Fetherston told Fox News Digital that as soon as Joseph heard he was losing custody of his daughter, he “reached across the table and grabbed me and got angry with me and started cursing and yelling and screaming and swinging at me because he realized what was happening.”
“I’m going to be honest; the entire experience has shaken me to my core,” said Fetherston.
MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENT CONDEMNS RIGHT-TO-SHELTER LAW TURNING BAY STATE INTO ‘DESTINATION FOR MIGRANTS’
Meshach Little of Northill Wilkston Security Firm walks the perimeter of the main living area at the state’s new emergency overflow shelter for migrants at the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex.(Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
He clarified that “it’s not so much the lunging at me and swinging” but rather the conversation that jarred him the most.
“The conversation was probably the most jarring conversation I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “His justification for having sex with his daughter was — and he did say it through an interpreter; he didn’t say it in English — that in his country — which his country of origin was Haiti — if a woman bled, meaning if she had her period, you could have sex with her and that was his justification for having sex with his daughter.”
Rather than arresting Joseph immediately, Fetherston was directed by authorities to order the immigrant a Lyft ride to another shelter in Worcester County. Joseph was not arrested until eight months later when Marlborough police finally apprehended him earlier this month.
“The Marlborough police came and calmed him down and actually had me transfer him to another shelter,” he explained. “I asked the Marlborough police like: ‘Why isn’t he being arrested? He admitted to this. At least why aren’t you just detaining him at the very least?’ And they’re like: ‘We’ll figure it all out.’ It took them eight months to figure it all out.”
BLUE STATE FACES SPIKE IN MIGRANT SEX CRIMES AS TOP CITY PLEDGES RESISTANCE TO TRUMP DEPORTATIONS
ICE agents are pictured arresting a man. ICE agents arrested an Indian citizen following his convictions for child sex abuse. (ICE ERO El Paso/X)
Though this case was particularly egregious, Fetherston said that “there is a lot of undocumented violence that goes on” and that rape, domestic violence, sex trafficking, drug dealing and other crimes are so commonplace in the Massachusetts shelter system that many incidents simply fall through the cracks.
“I will tell you, unfortunately, that it happens a lot,” he said. “There were times when I was running the shelter that there probably should have been times when I should have done more reporting, you just didn’t have the time to do it.”
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“It’s just a big, colossal mess,” Fetherston added. “I’ve been in public service most of my adult life, either through elective office or volunteering. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the migrant shelters would be the chaos that it is… It’s a systematic problem, that there is chaos in these communities and the public has the right to know what is going on.”
The former shelter director said that before quitting his job he brought his concerns about the widespread abuse to Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll — both Democrats — but neither gave him the time of day. Although Healey recently vowed to reform the shelter system and begin mandatory background checks on residents, Fetherston said there have yet to be any real changes.
ICE ARRESTS ‘PREDATOR’ MIGRANT CONVICTED OF SECRETLY RECORDING OTHERS IN BATHROOM
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey visit the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex, which was being used to house more than 300 migrants.(John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Despite promises of reform, the legislature renewed shelter funding at $425 million through June with no new changes.
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“People are frustrated from top to bottom,” he said. “The governor has spent over $3.5 billion just of the taxpayers’ money just on the migrant hotels [and]… just last week the Senate and House passed [a bill] to fund this migrant program until July of this year, zero reform, zero mandatory checks.”
“The governor says that all this stuff is coming,” he concluded, “and ultimately, at the end, there was no reform put in the package. It was just the approval to fund the shelters through the end of July. So, there is no reform.”
Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote Thursday on whether to advance Kash Patel’s nomination for FBI director to the Senate floor after a fiery confirmation hearing last month.
The vote is scheduled for 9 a.m. ET. If Patel passes through committee, his nomination will be up for a full Senate vote.
Democrats had successfully delayed Patel’s committee vote last week in an effort to force the Trump nominee to testify a second time.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa., said attempts by Judiciary ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and others to force Patel to testify again were “baseless” as he already sat before the committee for more than five hours and disclosed “thousands of pages” of records to the panel, as well as nearly 150 pages of responses to lawmakers’ written questions.
PATEL CAMP DECRIES DURBIN ACCUSATIONS AS ‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED’ ATTEMPT TO DERAIL FBI CONFIRMATION
Kash Patel appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing at the Capitol, Jan. 30, 2025.(AP)
This week on the Senate floor, Durbin alleged that Patel was behind mass firings at the FBI. Durbin said he’d seen “highly credible” whistleblower reports indicating Patel had been “personally directing the ongoing purge of FBI employees prior to his Senate confirmation for the role.”
An aide to Patel denied Durbin’s claim, telling Fox News Digital the nominee flew home to Las Vegas after his confirmation hearing and has “been sitting there waiting for the process to play out.”
Patel, a vociferous opponent to the investigations into President Donald Trump and who was at the forefront of his 2020 election fraud claims, vowed during his confirmation hearing that he would not engage in political retribution.
However, the conservative firebrand was likely chosen for his desire to upend the agency.
In his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters,” he described the FBI as “a tool of surveillance and suppression of American citizens” and “one of the most cunning and powerful arms of the Deep State.”
Patel has said intelligence officials are “intent” on undermining the president, but he promised he would not go after agents who worked on the classified documents case against Trump.
4 OF THE BIGGEST CLASHES BETWEEN PATEL, SENATE DEMS AT HIS CONFIRMATION HEARING
If Patel passes through committee, his nomination will be up for a full Senate vote.(AP)
“There will be no politicization at the FBI,” Patel said. “There will be no retributive action.”
Additionally, in another message meant to assuage senators’ concerns, Patel said he did not find it feasible to require a warrant for intelligence agencies to surveil U.S. citizens suspected to be involved in national security matters, referring to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
“Having a warrant requirement to go through that information in real time is just not comported with the requirement to protect American citizens,” Patel said. “It’s almost impossible to make that function and serve the national, no-fail mission.”
“Get a warrant” had become a rallying cry of right-wing conservatives worried about the privacy of U.S. citizens and almost derailed the reauthorization of the surveillance program entirely. Patel said the program has been misused, but he does not support making investigators go to court and plead their case before being able to wiretap any U.S. citizen.
Patel also seemed to break with Trump during the hearing on the pardons granted to 1,600 persons who had been prosecuted for their involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, particularly around those who engaged in violence and had their sentences commuted.
Kash Patel served as the acting Defense secretary’s chief of staff during President Donald Trump’s first administration.(White House)
“I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement,” Patel said. “I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual that committed violence against law enforcement.”
Patel held a number of national security roles during Trump’s first administration – chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, senior advisor to the acting director of national intelligence, and National Security Council official.
FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS REJECT WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIM THAT FBI DIRECTOR NOMINEE KASH PATEL BROKE HOSTAGE PROTOCOL
He worked as a senior aide on counterterrorism for former House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, where he fought to declassify records he alleged would show the FBI’s application for a surveillance warrant for 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page was illegitimate, and served as a national security prosecutor in the Justice Department.
Patel’s public comments suggest he would refocus the FBI on law enforcement and away from involvement in any prosecutorial decisions.
Kash Patel promised to get the FBI back to its law enforcement mission.(FBI)
In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, he suggested his top two priorities were “let good cops be cops” and “transparency is essential.”
“If confirmed, I will focus on streamlining operations at headquarters while bolstering the presence of field agents across the nation. Collaboration with local law enforcement is crucial to fulfilling the FBI’s mission,” he said.
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Patel went on: “Members of Congress have hundreds of unanswered requests to the FBI. If confirmed, I will be a strong advocate for congressional oversight, ensuring that the FBI operates with the openness necessary to rebuild trust by simply replying to lawmakers.”
Fox News’ Breanne Depisch contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump’s new director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, was sworn in at the White House on Wednesday, just hours after being confirmed by the Senate.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters during her briefing, “Senate Republicans continued to confirm President Trump’s exceptionally qualified nominees, most recently Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who will be joining us later at the White House for her swearing-in ceremony.”
DEM LOOKS TO CODIFY NEW AG BONDI’S DESIRED CRACKDOWN ON ‘ZOMBIE DRUG’ XYLAZINE
Gabbard was confirmed Wednesday afternoon.(Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s imperative that the remainder of the president’s Cabinet nominees are confirmed as quickly as possible,” she added.
Gabbard was sworn in by Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Oval Office. The event took place just after 4 p.m. and Trump was in attendance for the ceremony.
The Senate confirmed Gabbard in a 52-48 vote. The divide was along party lines, with the exception of former GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who opposed her.
“In my assessment, Tulsi Gabbard failed to demonstrate that she is prepared to assume this tremendous national trust,” McConnell said in a lengthy statement on his vote.
TRUMP LANDS KEY TULSI GABBARD CONFIRMATION FOLLOWING UPHILL SENATE BATTLE
McConnell was the only Republican to vote no.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the president receives are tainted by a Director of National Intelligence with a history of alarming lapses in judgment.”
Gabbard notably faced scrutiny over her past meeting with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, her previous FISA Section 702 stance and her past support for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
SENATE DOGE CHAIR SAYS SHE SPEAKS WITH ELON MUSK ‘EVERY FEW DAYS’ AS TRUMP ADMIN SLASHES SPENDING
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Edward Snowden(AP/Getty)
But those concerns were mostly quelled by Gabbard herself, in coordination with the significant efforts of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Vice President JD Vance, who worked behind the scenes to get party members on board.
She is the 14th Cabinet official to be confirmed in Trump’s second term.
DEMOCRAT SENATOR BACKS TRUMP’S ‘COMMON SENSE MOVE’ TO FIRE THE PENNY
Kennedy will face a confirmation vote on Thursday.(Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
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Next up will be Trump’s similarly controversial pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is nominated to be secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). He will get a vote early Thursday morning after clearing his last procedural hurdle Wednesday afternoon.
Julia Johnson is a politics writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business, leading coverage of the U.S. Senate. She was previously a politics reporter at the Washington Examiner.
Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought is now also the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he has directed staff to not issue any new rules, to suspend effective dates of all final rules and to stop any new investigations.
Vought, also a Project 2025 author, was named acting director of the CFPB on Friday.
“I am honored that President Trump designated me as Acting Director of the Bureau on February 7, 2025,” Vought said in an email to CFPB colleagues obtained by RealClearPolitics. “As Acting Director, I am committed to implementing the President’s policies, consistent with the law, and acting as a faithful steward of the Bureau’s resources.”
He issued several directives that, effective immediately, must be followed by all employees, contractors and other CFPB personnel “unless expressly approved by the Acting Director or required by law,” according to RealClearPolitics.
RUSSELL VOUGHT CONFIRMED TO HEAD GOVERNMENT’S LEADING BUDGET OFFICE AFTER DEMS HOLD 30-HOUR PROTEST
Russell Vought speaks during a Senate Budget Committee hearing on his nomination, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025.(Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
The directives include not approving or issuing any proposed or final rules or formal or informal guidance and for the bureau to suspend the effective dates of all final rules that have been issued or published but have not gone into effect.
Vought also ordered the bureau not to “commence, take investigative activities related to, or settle enforcement actions.” CFPB must not open any new investigation in any manner and must cease any pending probes, he said.
The acting director said the CFPB shall not issue public communications of any type, including research papers.
Russell Vought is sworn in during the Senate Banking Committee nomination hearing in the Dirksen Senate Building on January 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Additionally, the CFPB must not approve or execute any material agreements, including those related to employee matters or contractors, and must not make or approve filings or appearances by the bureau in any litigation except to ask for a pause in proceedings.
The bureau was also told to cease all supervision and examination activity and to cease all stakeholder engagement.
Vought also sent a letter to the Federal Reserve requesting no money for the CFPB’s third quarter of fiscal year 2025.
SENATE DEMOCRATS SPEAK ALL NIGHT AGAINST TRUMP OMB NOMINEE, DELAYING CONFIRMATION VOTE
Russell Vought testifies during the Senate Banking Committee nomination hearing in the Dirksen Senate Building on January 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
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“Pursuant to the Consumer Financial Protection Act, I have notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to carry out its duties,” Vought wrote on X. “The Bureau’s current balance of $711.6 billion is in fact excessive in the current fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off.”
This comes after Vought was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
Fox News Digital has reached out to CFPB for further comment.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was tapped as the acting director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) just days ago, is taking on another new role in President Donald Trump’s new administration.
Rubio is now also serving as the acting director of the U.S. Archives, ABC News reported, citing a high-level official. Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
Trump signaled last month his intention of replacing the now-former national archivist Colleen Shogan, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, during a brief phone interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt. The National Archives notified the Justice Department in early 2022 over classified documents Trump allegedly took with him to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office. That would later result in an FBI raid and Trump being indicted by former Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The source told ABC News that Rubio has been the acting archivist since shortly after Trump was sworn in as the 47th president last month.
USAID HAS ‘DEMONSTRATED PATTERN OF OBSTRUCTIONISM,’ CLAIMS TOP DOGE REPUBLICAN IN LETTER TO RUBIO
Rubio speaks after a tour of a migrant return center and a demonstration of a dog trained to sniff out narcotics at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City, on Feb. 5, 2025. (MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
This week, Rubio is traveling on his first official State Department trip to Central America, during which he convinced the Panamanian president to end its Belt and Roads project deal with the Chinese government. Trump has said the United States could claim the Panama Canal through economic or military measures if necessary after raising concerns about Beijing allegedly controlling the strategic waterway that was constructed by the U.S.
The Trump administration has suspended some foreign aid pending a review into how U.S. taxpayer dollars are being spent abroad, resulting in thousands of layoffs and ended programs.
Addressing reporters in Guatemala City on Wednesday, Rubio said he issued waivers for certain programs that assist in gathering biometric information to better identify fugitives, as well as bolster technology and K-9 units to identify shipments of deadly fentanyl and precursor chemicals, showing “firsthand the kind of foreign aid America wants to be involved in.”
“This is an example of foreign aid that’s in our national interest. That’s why I’ve issued a waiver for these programs, that’s why these programs are coming back online, and they will be functioning, because it’s a way of showing to the American people this is the kind of foreign aid that’s aligned with our foreign policy, with our national interest,” Rubio said.
Rubio is welcomed by Guatemalan Foreign Minister Carlos Ramiro Martinez at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala City on Feb. 4, 2025. (JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
‘VIPER’S NEST’: USAID ACCUSED OF CORRUPTION, MISMANAGEMENT LONG BEFORE TRUMP ADMIN TOOK AIM
America’s top diplomat said the United States wants some fugitives who are “strategic objectives, meaning they help us strengthen our partners, and they help us to cut the head off the snake of a transnational group that’s particularly dangerous.” He said the State Department would be “working very closely” with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department in “prioritizing our extradition requests so that they align with our strategic objective with regards to who it is that we’re going after.”
The State Department announced on Wednesday that “the government of Panama has agreed to no longer charge fees for U.S. government vessels to transit the Panama Canal,” saving the U.S. government “millions of dollars a year.”
However, the Panama Canal Authority denied having made any adjustments to the tolls or transit agreements of the canal despite the State Department’s announcement, adding that they are “ready to establish a dialogue with the relevant officials of the United States regarding the transit of warships.” Earlier this week, Rubio voiced frustration about U.S. Navy ships having to pay to transit through the canal despite the U.S. being under treaty agreement to defend the canal if it’s attacked.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Guatemala’s President Bernardo Arevalo at the Culture Palace in Guatemala City on Feb. 5, 2025. (JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio is such a breath of fresh air & he’s proven to be incredibly effective in implementing President Trump’s PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH vision for the world,” Rep. Carlos Giménez, a Republican ally of Rubio in Congress representing south Florida, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Panama has agreed to drop its ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Communist China & to waive the toll for U.S. Navy ships transiting the Canal Zone. Panama must continue to work with the United States to evict Communist China from their country & achieve a productive, long-term deal that prioritizes both of our countries’ shared interests.”
Besides the canal, Rubio has focused his trip on immigration, praising the Panamanians for the decreased flow of migrants through the Darien Gap and overseeing a deportation flight of Colombian nationals back to Colombia.
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Rubio secured two agreements with first, El Salvador, and then Guatemala on Wednesday, for the countries to accept deportees from the U.S.
Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on X: @danimwallace.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that he is now the acting director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Rubio told this to reporters while taking questions from the press in El Salvador.
“USAID is not functioning. It has to be aligned with US policy. It needs to be aligned with the national interest of the US,” he said. “They’re not a global charity these are taxpayer dollars. People are asking simple questions. What are they doing with the money? We are spending taxpayers money. We owe the taxpayers assurances that it furthers our national interest.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives to watch as people board a repatriation flight bound for Colombia at Albrook Airport in Panama City on February 3, 2025. Rubio is in Panama on a two-day official visit. (MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/Pool AP/AFP via Getty Images)
“I am the acting director,” he confirmed when asked if he is now in charge. “Our goal was to allow our foreign aid with the national interest. It has been 20 or 30 years. They have tried to reform it. That will not continue.”
USAID staffers were instructed earlier Monday to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters after Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency. Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs shut down.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on X: @danimwallace.
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., weighs in on Trumps tax cuts amid Scott Bessents confirmation hearing and Congress grappling with a strategy for the reconciliation bill.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will serve as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency announced on Monday.
“I look forward to working with the CFPB to advance President Trump’s agenda to lower costs for the American people and accelerate economic growth,” Bessent said.
The CFPB’s announcement noted that President Donald Trump designated Bessent as the agency’s acting director on Friday. Former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra wrote in a letter published Saturday that he was no longer serving as the agency’s director.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, is expected to trade barbs with lawmakers in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
Patel, a former public defender, Department of Justice official and longtime Trump ally, will join the Senate committee at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, when lawmakers are anticipated to grill the nominee on plans detailed in his 2023 book to overhaul the FBI, his crusade against the “deep state” and his resume, as Democrats argue the nominee lacks the qualifications for the role.
The president and his allies, however, staunchly have defended Patel, with Senate Judiciary member Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., arguing that Democrats are “fearful” of Patel’s nomination and confirmation due to “what he’s going to reveal” to the general public.
“They are very fearful of Kash Patel, because Kash Patel knows what Adam Schiff and some of the others did with Russia collusion, and they know that he he knows – the dirt on them, if you will – and I think they’re fearful of what he’s going to do and what he’s going to reveal,” Blackburn said on Fox News on Sunday.
WHO IS KASH PATEL? TRUMP’S PICK TO LEAD THE FBI HAS LONG HISTORY VOWING TO BUST UP ‘DEEP STATE’
President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, is expected to trade barbs with lawmakers in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Patel, a New York native, worked as a public defender in Florida’s Miami-Dade after earning his law degree in 2005 from Pace University in New York City.
Patel’s national name recognition grew under the first Trump administration, when he worked as the national security advisor and senior counsel for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under the leadership of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Patel became known as the man behind the “Nunes Memo” – a four-page document released in 2018 that revealed improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation into Trump.
Patel was named senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council in 2019. In that role, he assisted the Trump White House in eliminating foreign terrorist leadership, such as ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019 and al Qaeda terrorist Qasim al-Raymi in 2020, according to his biography. His efforts ending terrorist threats under the Trump administration came after he won a DOJ award in 2017 for his prosecution and conviction of 12 terrorists responsible for the World Cup bombings in 2010 in Uganda under the Obama administration.
Following the 2020 election, Patel remained a steadfast ally of Trump’s, joining the 45th president during his trial in Manhattan in the spring of 2024, and echoing that the United States’ security and law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, need to be overhauled.
‘JUST LIKE TRUMP’: ISIS MURDER VICTIM KAYLA MUELLER’S PARENTS ENDORSE PATEL FOR FBI FOLLOWING MILITARY OP ROLE
Kash Patel worked as a public defender in Florida’s Miami-Dade after earning his law degree in 2005 from Pace University in New York City. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Patel underscored in his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters,” that “deep state” government employees have politicized and weaponized the law enforcement agency – and explicitly called for the revamp of the FBI in a chapter dubbed “Overhauling the FBI.”
“Things are bad. There’s no denying it,” he wrote in the book. “The FBI has gravely abused its power, threatening not only the rule of law, but the very foundations of self-government at the root of our democracy. But this isn’t the end of the story. Change is possible at the FBI and desperately needed.”
“The fact is we need a federal agency that investigates federal crimes, and that agency will always be at risk of having its powers abused,” he wrote, advocating the firing of “corrupt actors,” “aggressive” congressional oversight over the agency and the complete overhaul of special counsels.
FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS REJECT WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIM THAT FBI DIRECTOR NOMINEE KASH PATEL BROKE HOSTAGE PROTOCOL
Patel adds in his book: “Most importantly, we need to get the FBI the hell out of Washington, D.C. There is no reason for the nation’s law enforcement agency to be centralized in the swamp.”
Trump heralded the book as a “roadmap” to exposing bad actors in the federal government and said it is a “blueprint to help us take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government.”
Patel has spoken out against a number of high-profile investigations and issues he sees within the DOJ in the past few years. He slammed the department, for example, for allegedly burying evidence related to the identity of a suspect who allegedly planted pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties in Washington, D.C., a day ahead of Jan. 6, 2021.
‘BEACON OF SELFLESSNESS’: ISIS VICTIM KAYLA MUELLER HONORED AT CONGRESSMAN’S SWEARING-IN 10 YEARS AFTER DEATH
Patel has also said Trump could release both the Jeffrey Epstein client list and Sean “Diddy” Combs party attendee lists, which could expose those allegedly involved in sex and human trafficking crimes.
Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Amy Klobuchar and Mazie Hirono, who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.(Getty Images)
Senate Democrats received an anonymous whistleblower report that was publicly reported Monday alleging Patel violated protocol during a hostage rescue mission in October 2020, an allegation Trump’s orbit has brushed off.
The whistleblower claimed that Patel leaked to the Wall Street Journal that two Americans and the remains of a third were being transferred to U.S. custody from Yemen, where they had been held hostage by Houthi rebels, before the hostages were actually in U.S. custody. Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, obtained the whistleblower report.
A transition official pushed back on the report in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, saying Patel has a “track record of success.”
‘WHEN THEY FAIL, AMERICANS DIE’: TRUMP SOURCE BLASTS FBI, URGES SWIFT CONFIRMATION OF KASH PATEL AS DIRECTOR
“Mr. Patel was a public defender, decorated prosecutor, and accomplished national security official that kept Americans safe,” the official said. “He has a track record of success in every branch of government, from the courtroom to congressional hearing room to the situation room. There is no veracity to this anonymous source’s complaints about protocol.”
Kash Patel has spoken out against a number of high-profile investigations and issues he sees within the DOJ in the past few years.(Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff for the White House National Security Council under Trump’s first administration, called the allegation “simply absurd.”
Patel’s nomination comes after six of Trump’s nominees were confirmed by the Senate, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth – who also was viewed as a nominee who faced an uphill confirmation battle.
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The Senate schedule this week was packed with hearings besides Patel’s, with senators grilling Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday and also holding the hearing for Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence.
Kash Patel is a former public defender, Department of Justice official and longtime ally of President Donald Trump.(Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
Patel heads into his hearing armed with a handful of high-profile endorsements, including the National Sheriffs’ Association and National Police Association.
Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of ISIS murder victim Kayla Mueller, also notably endorsed Patel, Fox News Digital exclusively reported on Tuesday. Patel helped oversee a military mission in 2019 that killed ISIS leader al-Baghdadi, who was believed to have repeatedly tortured and raped Kayla Mueller before her death in 2015.
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Patel “loves his country. He loves the people of this country,” Marsha Mueller told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview via Zoom on Monday morning. “To us, you know, he is a person that we would go to for help. And he is so action oriented.”
“Just like Trump,” Carl Mueller added to his wife’s comments on Patel’s action-motivated personality.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
EXCLUSIVE: CIA Director John Ratcliffe warned his agents of “changes” to come under his leadership in a memo obtained by Fox News Digital.
“There will be changes during my tenure as director,” the new leader of America’s top spy agency wrote in an agency-wide workforce message. Ratcliffe is currently reviewing all top staff and planning to put his own fingerprints on the senior level of the agency, Fox News Digital has learned.
“We will collect intelligence in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult. We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgment or infect our products,” Ratcliffe went on in his email.
“And we will conduct covert action at the direction of the President, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.”
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CIA Director John Ratcliffe warned his agents of “changes” to come under his leadership of the CIA.(Getty Images)
As agents conduct work in what Ratcliffe defined as the “most challenging national security environment in our nation’s history,” he promised the CIA would be the “ultimate meritocracy.”
“Our shared mission will bind us together.”
A source familiar with Ratcliffe’s thinking said, “This was a message to Agency’s workforce that the John Brennan era, the Gina Haspel era, the eras of promoting leftwing political agendas or subverting the President — those days are over.”
Haspel was President Donald Trump’s CIA director from 2018 to 2021 – while Ratcliffe was Trump’s director of national intelligence. Brennan headed up the agency under former President Barack Obama.
“I’m sure it’ll rub some of the political activists burrowed in there the wrong way, but there are a lot of red-blooded, mission-focused agency officers reading this and cheering him on,” the source added.
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Ratcliffe is also looking for ways to streamline the agency’s many tech-focused offices – the directorate of digital innovation; directorate of science and technology; transnational and technology mission center; office of the chief technology officer; and directorate of analysis, which has been developing AI-powered tools – to stake out clear lines of authority and tasks.
“Nobody comes to CIA to be somebody. Our successes remain hidden. Even our medals are presented behind closed doors, our sacrifices memorialized by stars on a marble wall. But each one of those stars represents somebody who wanted to do something, regardless of whether history would know their name,” Ratcliffe continued.
A source familiar with CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s thinking promised a different direction for the nation’s top spy agency than under Gina Haspel, CIA director during the first Trump administration.(Reuters)
“That’s what makes this place special. That’s what we must preserve.”
Ratcliffe was confirmed by the Senate last Thursday in a 74-25 vote.
Under its new director, the CIA released a new assessment of the COVID-19 origin which favors a lab origin with “low confidence.”
The review was ordered by former President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan toward the end of Biden’s time in office.
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President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director, John Ratcliffe, appears for a Senate Intelligence confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C.(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The agency has maintained for years it did not have enough intelligence to conclude whether COVID-19 originated in a lab or a wet market in Wuhan, China.
Ratcliffe recently told Breitbart News he no longer wanted the CIA to sit “on the sidelines” of the debate over the origins of Covid-19. He has long said he believes the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
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“I had the opportunity on my first day to make public an assessment that actually took place in the Biden administration, so it can’t be accused of being political,” he told “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.
“And the CIA has assessed that the most likely cause of this pandemic that has wrought so much devastation around the world was because of a lab-related incident in Wuhan, so we’ll continue to investigate that moving forward.”
