Kash Patel confirmed for FBI Director ….

Democrats in the Senate had hoped to slow his nomination, citing Mr. Patel’s repeated promises to enact a campaign of revenge on Mr. Trump’s behalf, his pledge to reshape the agency and his refusal to say that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election. But they had little success swaying their colleagues across the aisle, who are wary of eliciting the political wrath of Mr. Trump or his powerful allies like Elon Musk.

This month, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused Mr. Patel of improperly directing a slew of forced departures at the bureau without having been confirmed as its leader. Mr. Durbin added on Thursday that Mr. Patel’s apparent involvement stood at odds with his claim during his hearing that he was unaware of any political retribution at the F.B.I. that was unfolding as he testified.

Mr. Patel’s financial disclosures also raised eyebrows, but none of those concerns substantially shifted his support, allowing him to essentially glide through the confirmation process.

In the end, two Republicans opposed Mr. Patel’s nomination, Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist from Alaska, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine.

Ms. Collins pointed to the recent upheaval across the Justice Department, including the F.B.I.

“There is a compelling need for an F.B.I. director who is decidedly apolitical,” she said in a statement released before the vote. “While Mr. Patel has had 16 years of dedicated public service, his time over the past four years has been characterized by high-profile and aggressive political activity.”

On the floor, Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, praised Mr. Patel, saying he looked forward to working with him “to restore the integrity of the F.B.I. and get it focused on its critical mission.”

At Mr. Patel’s confirmation hearing last month, Democratic senators pressed him about incendiary comments he had directed at the F.B.I., including a so-called enemies list published at the end of his book, “Government Gangsters.” Mr. Patel disputes that description, calling it “a total mischaracterization.”

Regardless, Republicans eagerly embraced Mr. Patel, who played down his more bombastic statements

“I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards,” he said in his testimony. “There will be no politicization at the F.B.I. There will be no retributive actions taken by any F.B.I., should I be confirmed as the F.B.I. director.”

He later promised, “There should be no politics in the F.B.I.”

In an earlier era, Mr. Patel would have had trouble surviving the confirmation process, but Mr. Trump and his loyalists see him as a disrupter who will weed out supposed anti-conservative bias and shake up the bureau’s culture. Their hostility toward the agency stems largely from the investigations it opened into Mr. Trump, including his 2016 presidential campaign and its potential ties to Russia; his handling of classified documents after he left office; and his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election….

…

A former trial lawyer in the Justice Department’s national security division, Mr. Patel worked as a congressional investigator and then bounced around national security jobs in quick succession in the previous Trump administration, including serving as the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council…

…

In a lengthy questionnaire completed before his confirmation hearing, Mr. Patel acknowledged that he had served as a surrogate for Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign for about two years….

More…

image…Of particular concern to critics has been Mr. Patel’s vow to enact a campaign of revenge on President Trump’s behalf.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times