At least half the committee Democrats made clear they planned to make Patel’s confirmation process as difficult as possible, frequently pointing to his past controversial statements and forcing Bondi to come to Patel’s defense.

“You should be happy that so many comments have been directed toward Kash Patel, whose confirmation I’m supporting,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Bondi, adding, “because that means they’re out of stuff for you.”

Patel, a 44-year-old lawyer and ardent MAGA adherent, does not have a confirmation hearing scheduled yet, but the committee intends to set one once the current director, Christopher Wray, departs the FBI on Monday and once all Patel’s requisite paperwork has been submitted to the Senate, a committee aide told the Washington Examiner.

The hearing is an uncomfortable obstacle for Patel but one he is well positioned to overcome if he can soundly answer for the more controversial elements of his background. Prior to his nomination Patel made overstatements about his role in the Justice Department’s investigation of the Benghazi attack, as reported in the New York Times, flirted with unproven conspiracy theories, including QAnon, and envisioned making shock changes at the FBI, such as shutting down its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Patel can afford to lose three Republican votes in the Senate. As he has courted senators in one-on-one meetings on Capitol Hill, no Republicans have said they oppose him, though some are holding off on outright endorsing him.

“I’ll make my own decision,” centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told the Washington Examiner on Friday. “I did have a very good meeting with him, and he clearly has a lot of experience, both as a prosecutor and as a public defender.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the committee chairman and a key “yes” vote, was optimistic that Patel would survive the Senate’s vetting.

“Maybe something would come out at the hearing, but I look very favorable to him at this point,” Grassley told the Washington Examiner. “I’m not going to make a decision on my vote until after the hearing, but I don’t think it should have even been discussed in Pam Bondi’s hearing.”

Patel previously worked in senior roles in the Trump administration in the intelligence community and Department of Defense. But he first gained Trump’s attention while working as a top aide for former Rep. Devin Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee, where he helped lead Republicans’ inquiry into the FBI’s investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia.

Outspoken and brash, Patel wrote a book in 2023 called Government Gangsters in which he identified members of the so-called deep state who he said were “criminals.” The list included dozens of prominent Democrats, Republicans who have fallen out of favor with Trump, and other current and former agency officials.

Democrats in Bondi’s hearing zeroed in on Patel’s perceived “enemies list” and demanded Bondi vow not to maintain one. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) invoked Patel’s words, warning he would “come after” people who “helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election.” Ranking member Dick Durbin (D-CT) said Patel’s past rhetoric was what “you expect of the Stasi.”

A Trump transition spokesman, was unfazed with the material that cropped up during Bondi’s hearing, telling the Washington Examiner that Patel’s nomination process has been “going smoothly.”

A former FBI agent, who worked at the bureau for two decades, including at its headquarters, welcomed Trump’s nomination of Patel despite having initial disappointment over his lack of experience working in the bureau.

“Over the last few weeks, reading about the stuff he wants to do, I think it could be a good thing for the bureau to have him in there, from the standpoint of he’s going to take a hard look at the intelligence programs,” the agent told the Washington Examiner.

The former agent added that he wanted to see Patel confirmed, noting Patel’s goal to shake up, in Patel’s words, the bureau’s “intel shops” — an apparent reference to the counterintelligence component of the FBI.

“We want Kash to go in there with a scalpel and not a sledgehammer because there’s good things going on at the bureau,” the former agent said.